Alysse Aallyn

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  • Embattled Love – the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    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.

  • Embattled Love – the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    StormFall – 4 Aug 80


    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.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    4 pm 4 July 80


    I most mind the separation from Toss; our “togetherness” is an “affront” to his father’s loss he thinks. But it gives me more time for writing.

    Today was the worst day – no, yesterday was pretty bad too. Long ordeal of preparing food and sitting around waiting for somebody to eat it. Awful. Toss keeps trying to take away jobs his poor father really wants to do – everyone wants the man to sit there stunned and feel his loss. Subtle struggle for power between Lew’s brother Avery & Toss. Toss wants to do everything and he’s physically angry with other people’s interference; locking his jaw, snapping his head and waving his fists. This makes ME angry!


    Current thinking is its “good” to let your anger out but since anger is infectious this really is a stupid idea. I’m sure Toss is angry because he was raised by a really angry woman. Reminds me of my father’s anger – my mother’s response was to drift away, humming. It’s impossible to love a really angry person – anger is a rejection. Granma doesn’t help – tries to goad people into activities; sorting, cleaning fussing projects; busywork. Really annoying. We contemplatives get short shrift around her.

    Sat 12 July 80 – Grover’s Mill
    A week since Val’s funeral. Toss forced me to buy horrible clothes – I thought since it was all his and his family’s affair I’d give in to his taste – results shockingly bad. Things I never wear: Khaki, stripes, constricting belts: Yuck! So much for his “You have no taste Alysse.” Now we know what he thinks taste is: BEIGE CANVAS. Comfort not only NOT a consideration, It’s an insult – to the universe apparently. Never again. Saw Val in her coffin – touched her rock-hard chest, her frozen face. Nothing more shocking than a dead person – it’s like any object. God!


    Finished wedding invites, immediately invaded by terror. Why? Wish the wedding was tomorrow – wish I was pregnant – Is it because now I have to write? Probably. Other people don’t seek out electric jolts. Invaded by hunger which I tried to ignore by biking to Post Office. While riding, I think.

    Sun 13 July 80 5:35
    Finished sewing pearls on my wedding veil. A peaceful activity. Yesterday Seth (T’s brother) and his fiancé Sue came to dinner. Talk about Lois who is struggling to write a “You deserve it” letter to Sutton. Found pix to show of Sutton & Lois’ courting phase. Even when he’s smiling down at her (1949) he’s holding his body in an attitude of withdrawal. They married 2 months before Toss’ birth! But Lois looks happy.


    When he failed to respond up to what she considered his romantic potential she began the punishments, the denigration, and when he turned away she acted so amazed! Her power, her charm, her luck – rushed out of her like air from a punctured balloon. What did she expect! “He’s so awful he doesn’t deserve to leave me?” When does THAT ever work? Doesn’t even work with kids! They flee at the first opportunity!


    She received all God’s gifts – except…the one everybody wants. It’s more like a curse.

    16 July 80 – 11:30 PM
    Retire with the rum, hot milk & honey I promised myself – this will do more for my headache than aspirin. Been stupid all day. Wrote a few pages on Prisoner – hope it goes better when I get to Labarraz. Villains always interesting.


    Tried unsuccessfully to read Straub’s Ghost Story. How can something so coarse-fibred be so praised? Someday we’ll look back on him the way we look back on Ms Humphrey Ward. Clueless in Paradise.


    Avril called – Daddy gets a million and a quarter from Corning or $55,000 year for the next 30 years. Says he hopes we won’t mind if he “squanders” it. Inzar kids get a million each. I admit it – I’m jealous. What would I do with it? Philosophy degree from Fordham?

    Sat 19 July 80
    Housework not finished – unfortunately. We have a guest interrupting my dreaming hours – Galaine – elderly cousin of T’s whom I politely asked to be my matron of honor takes it as an invitation to move in. Fortunately, she sleeps late. Horror stories about how her husband beats her – she used to flee her home to sleep in the church. They’re divorced thank God. Washed Weasel AGAIN – she tangled with a skunk and is stiff and pink from tomato juice.


    Toss leaves Monday for 5 days in Kentucky studying with buddy Boone Macafee. In 5 days alone can’t I get 75 pages? We’ll see.

    9:15 PM – 21 July 80
    Light spatter of rain can’t break the heat – still in the high 90’s though it’s dark outside. Perfect half-moon burns a hole though the cloud cover. Strange gunpowder noises could be thunder or carnival a mile away. Dixie the Labrador very worked up.


    Inside myself I grapple. Reading theology is a help. I feel people come into the world not blank but as coded entities. Trying to figure out the code. Reading Rosamond Lehmann – Swan in the Evening & short stories – it sends me into a Woolf frenzy. My psyche knows the vitamin it needs.
    Can’t write so I address wedding invitations – it’s like a dinner party – the more you can do in advance the better.

    9:30 PM – 23 July 80
    Excellent days I’ve had. Wise waiting to write till things fall into place inside.
    Thoroughly enjoyed (and mostly agreed with) Garry Wills’ Bare Ruined Choirs. Shouted & cheered my way thru the sex chapters. He was good, too on the Jesus freaks.


    It hit me – here’s my Secaire. It’s my religious novel. I was dumb, I was slow but feel now I’ve got it.
    Up most of the night reading Greeley’s Making of the Pope 1978 – NOT an edifying story. We are all made in each other’s image.


    Housework. Avril’s train 10:30.

    The Barnacle Cabin – Shadow Island MAINE – 11:30 AM – Mon 28 July 80
    Argument with Avril – can Mom & Dad change? Should we nudge them? She is hostile to the idea: don’t EVEN TRY!!! But last night at dinner I pointed out how Mom interrupts – won’t let us get a word out – she was flabbergasted!! She’d been completely unaware of it – and so’s Mom! And it goes against Mom’s philosophy etc. So, there’s a change we could make if we pointed it out.
    Genevieve did give me some support. Agreed Plumly made a mockery of religion for the students (which Mom & Dad did NOT want to hear).


    Merrill very threatening and formidable – will not allow her schedule with Baby Barney to be interrupted. PERIOD. Whew!


    When I asked what time I could come to the Periwinkle Cabin and make coffee she said NEVER.

    The Barnacle needs hotplate!


    Merrill NOT a good ad for pregnancy – her body looks collapsed like a beanbag chair. I remind myself – this is where all the gins & tons are tending.


    Genevieve on the other hand looking particularly gorgeous – very challenging about my desire to go to Fordham; says “It’s CATHOLIC” the way you’d say “It’s fascist.” Wish I could have explained my emotional feeling that mysticism is “beyond all that.”

    The Barnacle – midnight July 30-31 – 80
    Talked to my sweetie on the phone and he read me some mail. Cindy thanks me for my note but “can’t face” the wedding. What did I say? Can’t remember.


    He had a good day on his exams – felt excited and competent. But he feels utterly unprepared for tomorrow’s New Jersey exam.


    Finished Jean Love’s Virginia Woolf – Sources of Madness & Art which I adored – can’t wait for the next volume. Especially interesting to read it “in the bosom of family” so to speak. Jean Love points out family members’ development is complementary to all others’ (family members’) development. Mom & Dad less insulting this time – they must be starting to think this wedding might really come off.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs 12 Jun 80


    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.

  • Embattled Love: The Diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    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.


    Dinner = trout grilled in spinach. Melon & cold veg salad.


    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?

  • Film Review: The Crown VS Saltburn

    Film Review – Scammers Get Scammed – Saltburn VS The Crown

    Well, it’s finally happened – The Crown has fallen in love with its subjects and a syrupy lot of over-privileged spoiled babies they are. When the nausea rises to projectile-vomiting level, try Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s revenge on all twits everywhere.

    There’s an obvious reason Fennell can’t call this new enterprise Promising Young Man to remind us of her magnificent first outing, Promising Young Woman ,because its subject, Oliver Quick, is pure evil. And that, of course, is the problem with this movie. If there’s anything more sickening than the self-confident blathering of nitwits, it’s the triumph of evil. No thanks! Sadly, it ruins the film because it “jumps the shark” into unbelievability. The twits certainly can become silly enough to be overtaken by the more intelligent but the sad truth of reality is, there’s always someone smarter and meaner coming along.

    One of my great pleasures, as a Plot Maven, is re-writing bad endings and Saltburn’s is easy. Aristocrats of the Saltburn type are surrounded by servants whom they vigorously try not to see. But the servants see them. Try Joseph Losey’s magnificent The Servant as a helpful restorative.

  • Film Review – “Stoker” by Alysse Aallyn

    Stoker – Arche-tripe

    Stoker’s screenplay started out as fan-fiction to Alfred Hitchcock’s much more enjoyable Shadow of a Doubt, which has a moral center, plus victims we care about and characters we can root for.

    Stoker has a good, even beautiful movie buried in it but park Chan-Wook kept messing it up, very deliberately, probably under the pressure (and pleasure) of his personal fetishes. It starts WONDERFULLY – psychologically interesting, visually compelling, achieving an apotheosis of eidetic perfection hen a shot of hair dissolves into quivering grasses but jumps the shark on story sanity. Anyone who want to write about crime (and criminal psychology) need to STUDY it carefully or they risk sounding like nine year old girls guessing about sex – majorly clueless and missing all the real points – ultimately creating an uninteresting world too obviously made up.

    Subjects like mental illness, spies, the foreign service, rituals of different countries, etc., can’t be persuasively invented, and threadbare simulacrums relentlessly reveal unpleasant truths about immature people who just don’t want their fantasies interrupted.

    I used to write fantasies, too, until I began an in-depth study of crime. It changed what I wrote, how I think about the world, even how I live my life. Devlyn is a fantasy – but Find Courtney can actually happen. (Versions of it already have.) This is the reason I usually don’t like sci fi. It is possible to completely make up a world – for example Alice in Wonderland – but if it doesn’t satirize the rules of the real one it collapses like a bad soufflé. Michelangelo felt he couldn’t create a credible physicality of angels without studying dead bodies in morgues.

    I understand that in Stoker our “Oldboy” doesn’t want to be “bothered” by all that stuff – he’s an “artist” who wants to create visual poetry so hypnotic it gets away with breaking the rules and it almost works! But by the end of the film real life insistently intrudes with its message that the “impossible” is ultimately boring.

    The acting in Stoker is very good – especially Matthew Goode who seemed creepily young and was almost perfect – he would have BEEN perfect if the director had allowed him to be a little less vampiric and a little less “ka-razy” and a little more human. That would have made him more appealingly believable. But of course everyone has to submit to becoming an “archetype” to satisfy this director. India Stoker’s amoral, murderous sexuality has been a fetish for middle-aged men seeking to relieve their guilt (and excuse their behavior) for literally HUNDREDS of years. “Some girls” don’t have “proper feelings” so can be ruthlessly used and heartlessly exterminated.

    Poor Mia Wasikowska! I have admired her ever since In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne – she deserves better. That said, I have to admit a personal failing – Nicole Kidman’s frozen weirdness always gets my back up. I have been rolling my eyes over her rigidity since Cold Mountain.

    Mostly I feel sorry for actors who are talked into limiting the range of their gifts by these visual directors who set out to make a cohesive, visually stunning objet d’art, not a complex story about humans. As proud professionals they know how to give the director what he wants, thereby betraying their actual abilities which could create something much more intriguing, provocative and mentally long-lasting.

    I watch a fair amount of crime and it’s always entertaining for me to speculate about how people could have gotten away with it. In this case, easily with a modicum of adulthood & sanity which seemingly bores our first-time scriptwriter (Wentworth Miller) who needs to be more “in your face”. Too bad. But I did enjoy seeing it because I relish being given a puzzle mistakenly assembled – in my view. Then I have the mental fun of putting it together more effectively myself – an amusing occupation for a winter afternoon Ah.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 44. A New Life

    Candi admitted everything. According to the newspapers, who disclosed much more than the police, “Scorned Girlfriend Plots to Confront Wife.” Candi admitted only that her plan was to “get the truth out of Scarlet,” but Miss Bottomley started screaming when Candi entered the house – “I couldn’t shut her up and I just panicked.”


    Mrs. Pourfoyle was indicted for “Malice Murder” – a capital offense. The murder weapon – brought by Candi all the way up from Wyvern House – was a table leg she wielded as a club.

    Candi’s husband David announced he was standing by her. “Husband Claims Home-wrecking Cad Manipulated Lovelorn Girl.”


    Was Ian the one who really wanted Scarlet dead? That was David’s argument! Would Ian be indicted? And how long would the generous, the fantastical, the life-altering disposition of Miss Bottomley’s estate remain private knowledge?


    For these reasons and many more it was no surprise to receive a call from Scarlet’s solicitor, Pelham D’Arcy.


    “Ian agrees to sign the divorce agreement we propose, without changes.”


    “Well, that’s a relief.” Scarlet sighed.


    “He’s worried about being indicted for “transferred malice murder.”


    “You mean they think he suggested killing me to Candi? I’ll never believe that.”


    “The press is painting him as a lady-killer. He’s concerned about losing his job. A quick divorce removes his motive and makes him an eligible bachelor.”


    Eligible Ian. Didn’t women flock to “lady-killers”, no matter what devastating facts they knew? Perhaps, thought Scarlet with her newly-acquired cynicism, they flocked BECAUSE of the “devastating facts.” Doesn’t every woman long to reform a roué? Horribly, I did, thought Scarlet. I fell for that. But she was a different person now. Still, the world thronged with eager victims. Ian wouldn’t be alone for long.


    “When’s he going to sign?”


    “It’s contingent on meeting you alone. I told them it would have to be at our offices.”


    “All right. Let’s get it over with.”


    “I suggest you wear your police whistle.”


    Could Pelham be serious? Surely Ian wouldn’t try anything violent – but she knew he would expect to physically touch her and she shrank from the thought. She knew him that well.


    “Is that a serious suggestion?”


    “I’m very serious. If you don’t bring it, we’ll have to bell you like a cat.”


    “I’m sure Enid will let me borrow it. If he signs, then where are we?”


    “Then we get a decree nisi, which is provisional for one year. They usually rush these things through to get it out of the papers but it depends on the judge. Every now and then you get a Huey.”


    “What’s that?”


    “It’s Bob’s and my shorthand for an impossible judge. I must say the publicity makes this very unlikely.”


    “Why’s that?”


    “It’s an open secret that everyone hates our divorce laws. Literally everyone. They’re just on the verge of either breakdown or reform.”


    Scarlet shuddered. So many things you didn’t think of when you stood before the altar, wide-eyed and innocent!


    “I’ll bring the whistle,” she promised.


    She took care to wear it well-concealed. No point red-ragging Ian. She had never figured out his level of self-control. Was everything he did well-planned, or was he ruled by a raging id? Well, thought Scarlet, I don’t care. I don’t have to care. She imagined a future of trying to explain to Nick why Daddy did the things he did. Why he wasn’t like Pom. Adorable, sensitive, reliable Pom, who talked things out, who listened, who cared. Who changed, day by day, evolving to love better. To live better.


    Ian looked different. Older, battered, his eyes bloodshot. Scarlet thought she smelled whisky underneath the cigarettes. Was he drinking every morning now, or was it just because he was seeing her? His suit hung on him in a peculiar manner, as if he had given up on any real nourishment. He and his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe, whose suit also was ill-fitting, could have been a vaudeville act – one so fat and the other starving-lean. Then again, perhaps Ian just wanted Scarlet to feel sorry for him.


    Mr. Jellicoe seemed very obliging and impressed by his surroundings. He shook damp hands all around.


    Ian looked at Scarlet with deep hunger. I’m the one who “got away”, she thought. The only one. She was glad of the whistle.


    They were guided to the Partners’ Room. At ten in the morning, no sherry was on offer. Ian refused everything, even water. Scarlet accepted a cup of tea to have something to do with her hands, until she noticed they were trembling. Then she set her teacup down hastily.


    Pelham made a point of seating them at opposite ends of the table. He closed the door softly.
    Ian began. “Scarlet, I want to let you know how sorry I am.”


    He waited for a moment as if to allow her to speak. But what could she say? She had already decided there was no point in being accusatory. When he was her ex-husband and the “occasional” father of her child perhaps they could concoct a relationship. At the moment, the situation was hopelessly fraught.


    He spoke again as if covering her silence. “I never guessed…what she’d do. I didn’t listen to her natterings.”


    There went her resolve about accusations. She was just too angry. The words boiled out of her.
    “You treated her like a joke, but the joke is on every one of us. Poor Candi wanted to be treated like a wife without realizing how cruel you are when you’re sure of someone. You ignore them, you devalue them. You fobbed her off with lies while you went your smug and merry way. I think you secretly enjoyed making her crazy. I think you wanted to see just how crazy she would get. Makes it easier to get rid of them, doesn’t it?”


    She half-expected him to fire up or at least smile that he’d gotten her goat but he hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. Scarlet struggled to contain herself. After a moment, he spoke.


    “Don’t compare yourself with her. You’re nothing like.”


    She could see the oil bubbling beneath his surface. Planning, planning, all along. He schemed to flatter her, fawn on her, throw himself on her mercy. He was testing, testing, for any way in. She should never have bothered giving him her honesty. It was all a game with Ian, and any game with Ian was just too dangerous. She summed up as best she could, “No one likes being lied to. A word of advice: it torpedoes relationships.”


    He rose.


    “You’re right, I’m wrong. I managed everything badly. I want to turn over a new leaf.”


    She rose as well, feeling a bit panicky. Was he planning to chase her around the table?


    “There’s Nick,” she said finally.


    “Of course, there’s Nick. But we won’t be together – with him – all the time.”


    Creepy! We’ll never be together with him at all. If I can help it. She summoned up her strength.
    “I don’t see that. I’m afraid we have little in common.”


    “How can that be? Don’t you remember the two young Oxford students working on St. Euphrosyne, with all our hopes and dreams and ambitions?”


    “I do,” she said. “I thought you didn’t.”


    He seemed calculating as to whether he could to rush her. He leaned forward, light on his feet.

    She pulled out the police whistle.


    At the sight of it he sat down heavily and put his head on the table.


    “Oh, Scarlet, Scarlet.” He began to weep.


    She felt stunned. She had never seen him cry. She was surprised it was even possible. Could he be faking this? Then she suddenly realized with a flash of insight that, from her point of view, the problem wasn’t that his emotions were false, but that they were ephemeral.


    “I’m sorry, too.” She advanced toward the door. “Haven’t we said everything?”


    He looked up, tear-streaked. “Do you hate me?”


    She was startled. She had hated him. That feeling was ephemeral. “No.”


    “Will you tell Nick to hate me?”


    Now she felt irked. “Of course not.”


    He gazed at her slyly.


    “Aren’t you afraid he’ll look on me as the fun dad, the devil-may-care seducer who knows how to get whatever he wants?”


    He’d been arguing inside his own head, cruelly mimicking her voice.


    “I’ll take my chances.” Nick would know Pom. He could choose; trustworthy love or untrustworthy disappointment. Choice – once well-informed – is up to each of us.


    “I’m forgiven?”


    This was strange. Odd word from a self-confessed unbeliever. The trial hadn’t even been held. Was he planning to call her as a character witness?


    “Not yet,” she said briskly. “You haven’t signed this document.”


    She put a hand on the doorknob. “Aren’t we done here?”


    He seemed almost confused, as if she’d spoke an unknown language. He rose awkwardly, holding out his hand. He had the sense to say nothing.


    She took his hand slowly and he immediately grasped it with his other one, as if he wanted her to feel his strength.


    She realized she just didn’t like the man.


    She turned away. She wrenched her hand back and, very unwillingly, he let it go and picked up the pen.


    Then she opened the door upon her new world.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 53. Shattered

    Dawn was just breaking as Scarlet came home. She took a long, hot bath and dressed, but the warmest sweaters and tights could not block the chill that had settled in her bones. The kitchen had become a crime scene. Enid switched her sphere of operations to the tiny kitchen off the ballroom. She could toast bread. Milk could be placed against the cold windowsill to keep it fresh.


    Scarlet crawled into bed with Nick. He still was healthy, wide-eyed, fresh, new and needy. He had no idea how horrible the world really was.


    “She’s gone,” Scarlet told Enid. “The brain injury was just too awful.”


    “What made you wake?”


    “I’m not sure. I had a dreadful dream. Something about Miss Bottomley lost on a raft. I must have heard a sound from downstairs.”


    “Miss Bottomley screamed. I heard it too. That dreadful woman must have attacked her to stop her noise.”


    Candi had lots of reasons for attacking people. All given to her – thought Scarlet grimly, by my dear husband.


    The policeman climbed up the stairs to see the women. He didn’t look like a detective but more like a department store floorwalker with his shiny bald head and a sharp-cut suit.


    “Scotland Yard,” he introduced himself. “Inspector MacBlythe. May I get the details of your story?”


    “We’ll meet you in the sitting room,” sighed Scarlet. She climbed reluctantly out of bed and walked to the chintz settee she had so admired just a few brief weeks ago. She had thought she knew trouble and sorrow then, but in reality she had been only too naïve in the ways of misery. Fatally so. How could she could have ever guessed what depths of viciousness simple selfishness and greed could release!


    The Inspector was not as surprised by the existence of a night guard as the bobby had been. “This place is a treasure house,” he said. “It’s at least a two-man job.”


    “I wish we’d thought of it,” Scarlet wept. “The security man seemed so confident.”


    Enid freshened the tea.


    “What connection are you to Mrs. Pourfoyle?” MacBlythe was coming to the meat of the matter.
    “When I found out she and my husband were having an affair I told him I wanted a divorce. She quit her job and moved into our country house – at least that’s what my solicitor tells me. But last week she came up to London and threatened me as if I was the one blocking the divorce. But Ian’s been the blocker. It seems he’s got other girlfriends, one actually living with him in his flat. Again, according to my solicitor.”


    MacBlythe took down all Pelham D’Arcy’s and Ian’s information, and moved over to Enid. Nick began to cry and Scarlet gladly sprang to her feet to remove him from the room.


    Pelham called when the police had finished with him and requested an interview – “you and Enid both.”


    “Oh, good,” said Enid. “I don’t want to be alone. Let’s have dinner out, afterwards.”


    “I’m too tired for anything but fish and chips,” said Scarlet, who really didn’t want to see people.


    “That’s fine with me.” Dear Enid, obliging as always.


    Bob Thomas and Pelham met them in the Partners’ Room, which had a long table, imposing portraits and deep comfortable wingback chairs. Nick slept angelically in his carrycot. Scarlet imagined someday trying to explain all this to him.


    “Well, this is a terrible thing,” said Bob Thomas, pouring tea all around. From an antique silver set, Scarlet noticed. She and Enid refused sherry. “Is the woman mad?”


    “Temporarily maddened,” contributed Pelham, who was more accustomed to the vagaries of divorce.


    “Well, she’s committed murder, is what she’s done,” said Bob Thomas.


    They all agreed it was an unconscionable thing as they sipped their tea. There was a knock on the door and Pom thrust his head inside.


    “Pom, I’m in a meeting!” gasped Scarlet.


    “I asked Mr. Bronfen to join us,” said Bob Thomas. “Tea? Sherry?”


    Pom accepted a small sherry. He sat next to Scarlet and held her hand tightly, under the table.
    “All three of you – Mr. Bronfen, Mrs. Rumson and Mrs. Wye – are beneficiaries under Miss Bottomley’s will.”


    Light burst onto Scarlet when she realized, he is talking about me! She had forgotten she was Mrs. Wye. Suddenly she was on a par with Lady Lechmere in her attorney’s eyes. She had been upgraded.


    “Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “But won’t they contest it?”


    “Who?” inquired Bob Thomas calmly. “There are no interested parties. She was literally the last of her line. The property would have reverted to the Crown.”


    “Mr. Inkum-“


    “Mr. Inkum would not dare. The papers he attempted to get Miss Bottomley to sign were so outrageously self-interested he would be drummed out of the profession if anyone complained.”


    Reality began to sink in. She sadly recalled Miss Bottomley’s delighted exclamation, “Do you know, I am a very rich woman?”


    Pom and Enid and Scarlet gazed at each other, dazzled.


    Bob Thomas cleared his throat. “There are six trusts concerning real estate, art, publishing and commercial properties. Mrs. Wye is the discretionary trustee and I am the advisor.”


    And he proceeded to explain.

    Scarlet was openly clutching Pom’s hand as they staggered out of the lawyers’ office.
    “I’m gobsmacked,” said Enid. “What a lovely human being she was.”


    “And how we’re going to miss her,” gasped Scarlet.


    Pom guided them into a nearby bistro – “do you like pizza? You must try it,” and ordered a bottle of chianti.


    “To Miss Bottomley’s foresight and generosity,” toasted Pom.


    Nick’s eyes were big as he looked from each to each in the candle flame.


    “But we couldn’t protect her!’ sighed Scarlet. “It’s because of me she’s dead, don’t you see?”


    “How could you ever have guessed that Candi would do such a thing?”


    “I couldn’t!”


    “Any thug could have broken in and attacked poor Miss Bottomley at any time. She could have been assaulted on the street! She was all alone before we came.”


    “But the time was so short. Too short.”


    “Time is always too short,” said Pom and he squeezed Scarlet’s hand meaningfully.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 52. The Snarl Behind the Smile

    That very night Scarlet had the strangest dream. She was picnicking with Pom – a Watteau-like scene of countrified perfection. They lolled on a riverbank, dressed in party clothes with the best offerings of Fortnum & Mason spread out at their feet. But it seemed however much they laughed, lifting their glasses to each other, some desperate dread lurked right below the surface. Suddenly in the stream beside them Miss Bottomley appeared on a raft. Night-clothed, disoriented and woebegone she lifted up her hands in supplication before being swept away. Neither Scarlet nor Pom could react. Scarlet felt her clothes an enormous weight, her limbs immobile, she could not even force her lips into a scream. The terror was so immense Scarlet struggled to wake up.


    “This must be a dream,” she told herself, and so it was. Scarlet fell back against the pillows as exhausted as if she’d been fighting, not sleeping. Yet she felt some relief. She had been given another chance. She must not waste it. What had she forgotten? It was something connected with Miss Bottomley. Her preoccupation with Pom was causing her to neglect Miss Bottomley. Something – something – she forgot to do. But as so often happens, the dream words melted away on the sand before she could read them.


    Was Miss Bottomley calling out for her? There was only one way to find out. Scarlet struggled into a dressing gown and slippers and hurried down the stairs.


    She heard it before she saw it, pushing against the baize kitchen door — some desperate struggle in the lighted kitchen. Scarlet braced her body against the door to see a slight figure kneeling over Miss Bottomley with a flail, beating and beating. Blood was everywhere, swirling patterns rising and falling to the very ceiling. The room stank like a charnelhouse.


    Scarlet sprang forward, grabbed the black clothed creature whose eyes beneath a ski mask swiveled up to confront her. Those eyes – mad with rage – were Candi’s eyes. Scarlet tore off the mask to reveal Candi’s demonic face. Candi shrieked – “You!” and attacked her.


    The club slipped from her hand and fell to the floor while the women struggled in a desperate embrace. Scarlet felt strong, but stupid and slow – the other woman was wiry and crazed.


    “I’ve got to knock her out somehow,” Scarlet thought and with all her power forced Candi’s head against of the cast-iron Aga stove. Again and again she cracked it until Candi went down.


    Then she heard a siren, ear-splitting – and saw Enid aghast in the doorway.


    “What happened? I pressed the panic button!”


    “Call for an ambulance – Miss Bottomley’s been hurt.”


    Before she attended to Miss B she must hogtie Candi with kitchen clothesline – no risking another assault. Candi seemed completely out of it but she was breathing.


    Miss Bottomley’s eyes were open. She was wearing the cursed red anorak over her nightclothes – bitterly Scarlet rued their casual swap. How much trouble this had caused! She had already received one warning about the dangerous potentialities of clothing confusion but she’d failed to grasp its meaning.


    “What happened?” gasped Miss B. “Did I fall?”


    Scarlet, hot with tears, pulled her wounded employer into her lap and began rocking her like a child. “You’re going to be all right,” she chanted. “We’re taking you to hospital.”


    The night guard appeared in the doorway, his mouth agape.


    “What happened?”


    “Somehow this woman got in and attacked Miss Bottomley. Enid called the police and ambulance.”
    “Oh, my lord,” said the poor man, “Must have been when I went to the phone for hourly report.”


    Miss Bottomley gasped and gurgled. She clutched Scarlet’s hand so hard it was difficult to surrender her to the medics. As Scarlet climbed into the ambulance she could hear the night guard explaining to anyone who would listen, “I had to make my report.”


    Why hadn’t she been informed that his post would be unwatched for minutes every hour? It was ludicrous! She grabbed his arm.


    “Don’t you dare let the attacker go,” she commanded. She didn’t trust him anymore, but at least Candi seemed immobilized. Scarlet could hear the police siren, but the ambulance couldn’t wait.
    Rocking back and forth she asked herself, Why had it occurred to literally no one, that a single guard couldn’t possibly cover the entrance? What about bathroom breaks, not to mention the hourly reports from the corner phone the client had not even been informed about? She gritted her teeth, but the person she most blamed was herself. She could kick herself for not thinking it through.


    How easily we accept reassuring appearances without enquiring deeper!


    At the hospital, Miss Bottomley was rushed away and Scarlet was given a blanket to cover her bloodstained nightclothes. She longed for the comfort of Enid’s presence but knew Enid must remain at Norfolk Crescent for Nick. She’d have to get through this alone.


    “May I speak to you, ma’am?”


    It was a London bobby, helmet removed, holding his notebook.


    “Sure,” said Scarlet in her exhausted American drawl.


    “What occurred precisely? Best you can recall?”


    “I must have heard something. I really don’t know why but I got up, thinking Miss Bottomley –“


    “The injured party?”


    “Yes. She’s my employer. I thought she needed me. When I ran downstairs I heard them struggling. This woman Candi Pourfoyle must have come through the back entrance – there’s a guard on but he says he was making a phone call.”


    “There’s a guard?” interest in his gray eyes.


    “Well stone masons are building a new entrance at the back and there isn’t a door so they set a guard there. But he’s no good!” She bit her thumb angrily. “I wish I’d known he was going to be no good.”


    “Cup of tea?” A sympathetic sister approached.


    “Yes, please.” Scarlet accepted the white china cup – you could see the sugar they’d sloshed in. It was lukewarm but enormously comforting.


    “You recognized the attacker?”


    “Candi Pourfoyle, I told you. “


    “And she is?”


    “My husband’s girlfriend. I don’t know if she thought Miss Bottomley was me or not – poor Miss B. was wearing my anorak – but Candi would have to come through the kitchen and Miss B often fell asleep sitting by the Aga –“


    “Hold on now, please. What exactly did you see?”


    “They were both on the floor. Candi was beating her with a club – blood everywhere. I pulled her off, knocked her out and tied her up with clothesline. Enid heard the ruckus and called police.”


    “You knocked her out? Did you have a weapon?”


    “No. I wish I had. But I bashed her head against the stove.”


    The bobby patted her knee. “That’s a ghastly experience,” he said sympathetically. “Dreadful.”


    And it’s only going to get worse, Scarlet could tell from the doctors’ faces as they pushed through the operating theatre doors. She stopped trying to be strong and burst into tears.