by Gail Godwin
If “Roxanne” was any indication, this new project will take a year to finish. I cannot write down to people—even if I were desperate for money. This is why I must wait.
Heroine’s name? I don’t know.
She must have a little of Lisa’s temperament (of course, I’ll call her Lisa) & a little of Madame Bovary.148
Publishers will go on publishing novels about discontented wives.
Anyway, she is constantly looking at herself & no gruesome details must be spared. Pick it up anywhere, waking on Sunday morning, & go from there.
STRESS her sense of uselessness. She tries to paint, write a history of Gull Key (send for that manuscript, and quote verbatim), make collages; she accepts her husband’s advice about the futility of the lighthouse history (“Besides, who’d buy it?”) and writes a women’s magazine a query about an article.
Some of Moravia’s sullen narrative is good to keep in mind.149
Only, my heroine gets free at the end by creating & shaping a perfect excuse for divorce. Describe everything (even the deputy serving the papers) & try to put across the fact that she is so honest with herself she forces herself to take her affair seriously.
“Pick it up anywhere,” Gail advises herself as she starts her new novel, “Gull Key,” “waking on Sunday morning,” for example, “& go from there.”150 Anticipating a year of work, she already knows certain things about the book, partly from her reading. Stories about tragically married women by writers such as Philip Roth and Alberto Moravia enable her to declare, “My heroine gets free at the end.”
The spirit of the times places Gail’s generation at a key point in the history of male-female relationships, which were undergoing perhaps their first major shift since the medieval invention of courtly love. In responding to this, Gail is not only answering to a calling, she is responding to the marketplace. The market, at its best, is a good indicator of pertinence: “Publishers will go on publishing novels about discontented wives,” as Gail notes. Women needed mirrors that reflected more than just their bodies, and they found greater context in books.
“I was one of those people who have the misfortune to grow up with one foot in one era and the other foot in the next . . .” said Kitty.
“Sometimes I think those persons raised in the interstices of Zeitgeists are the ones most punished,” said Jane.
—JANE, THE HEROINE OF GODWIN’S 1974 NOVEL, THE ODD WOMAN, CONVERSING WITH HER MOTHER, KITTY
Using her living experience, Godwin enables herself to freely play with her material and attain a method of storytelling toward which her previous journal entries have been building; that is, the representation of drama through design rather than progression. Design reveals how the mind works and how fate operates.
“Everything doesn’t fit together so damn neatly,” she writes in admiration of Roth’s “Very Happy Poems.” Roth’s heroine “thinks in disjointed spurts, not montages.” Reality is an organic thing; it has an accidental brilliance.
MARCH 17
NIGHT—
New worries. How much income tax will the British gov’t take out? Ah, these last days kill me. Tony is getting a little nervous, too. “There ought to be a law against goodbyes.” Good title for a song.
Ah, hell. I prefer oblivion tonight . . . I’ll be glad when it’s over. Feelings hurt too much.
MARCH 23
LONDON
Where to begin: with the where—I am settled in South Kensington in a comfortable room (except for these Britishers’ damn antiquated heating methods).151 I am situated so that I don’t have to pay any bills or cook any meals, which is fine with me. I think now—the next two years—will be the test. The thing is to keep my head & try to unwind a little bit. Think & Act.
In a place like London, one could go crazy with indecision. There are so many things to want. I must make my plans & stick to them. Once I get started it will be easy. The room will be okay for the summer. I’m going to ask for Eugenio’s room in June. I shall make it livable for my occasional “ventures” and for myself by putting up a few pictures, maps etc. & decorating it, so to speak. Or I may keep this for the summer. It would be nicer. Tomorrow I must see about renting a typewriter, getting a hairdresser, another pair of shoes. I can work, go to plays & to dinner & write my book. This time I have to. I need to hear myself thinking.
MARCH 25
Yesterday I went to see Luther, 152 had an Italian lunch in Soho & bought A Long & Happy Life, 153 by Reynolds Price, which I read & admired.
There is something not quite comforting about Sunday afternoons. It has to do with a feeling of suspension, of waiting, of wanting to be outside when you’re in and inside when you’re out. This house is full of people who are coping with this Sunday afternoon. The Handel from above is Michel’s way of dreaming with his girl in the attic room where you can’t stand up but have to lie about on pillows. The first few times, I thought the black ladder leaning against the wall was due to the carelessness of a painter or workman who had finished & gone away.
Michel teaches convicts to read & write Monday through Fridays. This house is full of these people. Some keep cats or a hamster for company, rather than music. The Yoga teacher sits in his room below me and breathes. Eugenio, the millionaire’s son from Mexico, is spending the weekend with friends. I think it’s a shame to vacate that room of his next door even for a weekend. The fireplace, the bookcase stocked with shiny hardcovers of Ayn Rand & Mary Renault, the Mexican wroughtiron candelabra with no two candles reaching upward from the same level. The other night I had a headache & went to borrow an aspirin.
“Yes, I can see you need a treatment,” Eugenio said in his perfect, slightly American, English. “I have a few things here in my bag . . .” And he pulled out a TWA canvas travel kit and unzipped a small pharmacy. His manicured hands hovered and plucked.
“Here. Try a Bufferin. Then you look a little white, you know. I believe you shall have a vitamin C. Just chew it up. Now is anything else wrong?” (Hopefully.)
Last night I sat in the lounge and a fattish, pink young adult with baggy trousers began playing the out-of-tune piano with complete unself-consciousness. He smiled the whole time. I did not recognize the tune. It sounded a little like circus music on that tinny piano. Later, when he left the room, I went over and looked at the book he had played from. It was Bach’s Preludes & Fugues for Major & Minor Keys.
At the table I began drawing out an interesting young man with graying hair & a ring on his little finger. His name is Neil & he has a history degree from Oxford and those perfect, almost effeminate graces. I had been looking at the picture of a young author in the book jacket of a first novel. “Damn it, born in 1933,” I said. “Only four years older than me.”
Neil gave me what you might call a grateful smile (except his smile was only a slight stretching of his lips). “Oh? It’s comforting to know someone else notices those dates on the backs of book covers,” he said.
Colonel and Mrs. West told me Neil sold office furniture.
It is a terrible thing to see a person who has not become what he wanted to be. Is that going to happen to me? Have I, by casting off one life already, freed myself or become more entangled in my own selfishness? Is it wrong to want everything? What am I doing in this South Kensington boardinghouse for young professionals? Are they, are we, the ones who could not bear to be shackled with ordinary responsibilities and thus wound up in a kind of prison of selfishness which gives us meals, linen & maid service for 7 guineas a week and demands nothing of us, no agonizing choices, not even the burden of selecting a head of lettuce at the greengrocer’s.
The girl at the office, I must learn at least her first name tomorrow, is exactly my age. Twenty-four. She and her Mississippi husband have a flat in Hampstead. The bathroom is under an eave in the kitchen and her feet have not been warm once in the eight months they’ve been in London.
Yesterday her husband met her for lunch & then they went to buy a teapot. (Imagine, a real shopping jau
nt for one teapot. I can hear them discussing it over breakfast: “Now we’ve returned these people’s invitation for tea, so we have to buy a teapot. Do you think it will cost much?”) She kept thanking me over & over for explaining why one should scald the pot. I think she regards me as terribly cosmopolitan. She is a comfort to talk to.
So here I am, getting back to me, and who kids himself into thinking he ever puts others first? Here I am in this “youth brothel,” as Mr. West chucklingly labeled it in a burst of American humor. The room is never warm enough. I am in walking distance of Chelsea. I can hear background music of Haydn & Bach from Michel’s attic concert hall, and I am truly alone. Very much alone. It follows, doesn’t it, that I have all the prerequisites from time immemorial in order to scour my soul & allow my creative impulses to flourish. Oscar Wilde lived only down the street and I have an urgent rather desperate feeling that, for this chick, it is either now or never. I have borrowed too many laters. My account is overdue as it is.
APRIL 9
Eugenio & I are trading rooms—he’s converting mine into two & I will feel much cozier in his. I shall allot a sum of, say, $50 to decorate it. I need curtains (velvet from Mrs. West) & a damn striking bedspread. The mantel is there for me & I shall need a bookshelf, which I’ll paint dark on the inside & white around the edges. I want one centerpiece picture (a sketch or a print) to dominate the room & to inspire me. Then on that private wall by my bed I’m going to put a lot of small, framed pictures of the Canary Islands to weep over. After I get the room the way I want it, I should be able to concentrate more. Andrew will paint the room for a price ($5?).
APRIL 11
Doreen W., my supervisor.
About thirty years old—seven and a half years, airline stewardess; two years as information-on-U.S. director with TWA in Britain. Was skiing in Switzerland when she decided to stop. Virtuous, etc. “How can a girl live with herself if . . . ?” Calm, always the right answer—works late every night, a “girl’s girl.” Not impeccably dressed nor even fashionable. Striking, Indian-like face. Cheekbones, black hair.
If I could get three stories in clean, finished working condition—then take them to an agent—I might have a better chance.
APRIL 12
Today I assisted a gentleman by telephone.
“Much obliged,” he snapped cheerily. “I hope you have a lovely lunch.”
This is England.
opened a bank account
paid Wests
planned first revised page of “Roxanne” on the bus going home
I just have to get settled materially first and then set up a schedule.
I am going through an “action cycle.”
APRIL 14
Every time a person really feels like Mr. Smug, something ridiculous happens. Like tonight. I was on my way to the toilet, smugly disgusted with my complete capture of poor C., when the door clicked shut behind me. A brisk run through the dark in pajama top & no bra to get a key from the Wests brought me firmly back to earth.
(The Wests hang their clothes over the couch & chairs when they go to bed at night.)
Block to my writing. I am too immersed in myself—am going to read all my journals over and make notes. Perhaps it would be a good enema.
Bought:
an Italian typewriter
an original drawing from Durrell’s Sti f Upper Lip.154
a sweater
Feeling vaguely guilty. My impulses ran away with me, or did they?
APRIL 18
WEDNESDAY
Dinner in Soho with Doreen last night—she is very diplomatic, interesting but somehow has not pierced the barrier. Friday—Jas. Montgomerie is taking us all riding in his new convertible. Tomorrow night I’m going to the pub with Mike, the Yorkshire “turf accountant,” and get good & drunk. Ahh, I have moved & instantly feel at home in this room—especially with Eugenio’s wonderful electric blanket. I must get one next winter.
APRIL 19
THURSDAY
Last night went to the Prospect of Whitby155 with Mike, Andrew, Judy, Simon, and McClosky. All of us are being evicted from 31 Tregunter in one month.156 We got tipsy, sang songs, and told jokes.
APRIL 22
SUNDAY
Springtime in London is worth waiting for. This new feeling—of being in a place I’ve wanted to be a part of for longer than I can remember. The houses open up, gardens sprout everywhere, the jets whine out over my roof toward vacation lands. How long have I waited to sit in my own room on a bed in the window, my back to the sun, surrounded by typewriter and books, new ideals and a new love all in the present.157
APRIL 26
THURSDAY
Bad bout with a cold, but the U.S. Navy doctor with the crew cut diagnosed “the London crud,” and fortified me with “a bunch of stuff.” The week has passed quickly. I can see the end of the letters, 158 although Doreen can’t. Tomorrow night—James. I have a sneaking suspicion he is one of those hopeless cases—a WH, an AF159 —I think he can jolly well live without me.160 The Wests still haven’t found a house. If they don’t, I’ll have to go to a horrible little hotel.
Judy stayed up all night typing Mr. West’s Greek incident.161
APRIL 27
Like a damned ass I volunteered to work tomorrow. It’s five till eight and dear James hasn’t showed up. If he doesn’t come tonight I shall (1) eat something—even at Wimpy’s; (2) write Crowther162 ; (3) go to bed early.
So it worked out. He thought I was late, etc. A slow uncoiling over Black & White. Learning new things about each other, dinner at Alexandre’s, then we went to his place and he read me the first half of a short story and one act of a musical, “Why Buy When You Can Rent?”163
APRIL 29
SUNDAY
I find it necessary to become more involved with “living” (or should I say living it up) to get off by myself and remember what it is I’m planning to do. This weekend read like a storybook. Honestly, I’m so highpitchedly happy I wait for disaster to strike any minute. Worked until thirteen o’clock at the office, didn’t get as much done as I’d wanted because Bob Briggs, the assistant director, came in, several phone inquiries, the marine from Greensboro, etc. James came about two. He had brought me flowers & I gave him an octopus made of glass with blue eyes. We drove to the lake & ate a lunch of rabbit food, bread & cheese, Algerian wine & coffee & then drove the new motorboats around the lake for thirty minutes. After that we went to Bob Briggs’s luxury flat (huge but rather empty) for the celebration of the new baby, Felicity. We appeared in our red sweaters & I could see the longing look in Doreen’s eyes. (“A well-balanced girl, but not too exciting,” James commented later.) Jas. made an excellent impression—the Oxford barrister, well-traveled, easy-spoken, always in command, never making a fool of himself. Briggs got pretty drunk. We went out to some Chelsea pubs & then back to James’s apt. Doreen put on his white sweater & more drinks were served & I went to sleep. Spent the night with James (he didn’t touch me) & I must say it was good being close to him. We have such a tremendous affinity. Real Geminis in every sense. He says the things I wish people would say oftener—quiet, unaffected statements filled with unself-conscious love. (“You’re a nice person. I think you’re unselfish in a lot of ways.”)
This morning we lay in bed & talked from nine until twelve (he asked me if I was a virgin and I firmly denied it but I think he suspects I am). How nice to have a little convertible waiting under the window again! Then he fixed breakfast & played Pictures at an Exhibition164 and we read the papers. This sort of situation has always seemed one of the happiest to me.
Part six
MY VOCATION
Tregunter Road to Old Church Street,
London, with an Excursion to Amsterdam
MAY 8–SEPTEMBER 30, 1962
“Tonight . . . listening to Van Cliburn & Mozart’s Requiem, I regained my vocational spur,” Gail writes on May 12 as Saturday night crosses into Sunday morning. Her fellow boarders had been playing music all
day. Now she is alone in her wakefulness, conjuring up the right frame of mind to do nothing less than fulfill her destiny.
Three and a half weeks had passed since Gail had traded her room for Eugenio’s, bought a typewriter, and set herself up, expecting an inspirational flow. With music providing a background, she bears down, giving herself pep talks and pouring her energies into several works: three versions of her Florida-based novel (“Halcyone and the Lighthouse,” “The Gall Crab,” and “Gull Key”); the novels “Roxanne” and “Kim”; and two short stories. While these works will not find publication, they give us an opportunity to see the young Godwin at work, figuring out her craft.
Also gestating during this intense period was a work that would wait until 1983 to find expression and publication: the novella “Mr. Bedford.” Gail was recording in her journals the observations and impressions that would be used to describe the essence of her sometimes hilarious, always vivid London boardinghouse experience.
MAY 8, 1962
Last night I went home with Doreen for dinner. I try and try and try to like her, but always there is that reservation. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I’m trying a work experiment which I shall record in this book. I don’t actually give a damn about this job & therefore I can experiment with organization techniques. I’ve succeeded in getting into the inner room, where I have access to all reference material & get to listen to the management end of the business. Doreen has now asked me to open the mail & sort it. I have started trying to do little deeds to “take the weight off your shoulders.” After all, I tell her, you’re management. You shouldn’t have to do these pedestrian things. I’ll do them. The thing is to get people to depend on me to find things for them. That’s the first step. We shall see. A Mrs. Gilbert came in today & I helped her & she ended up inviting me down to her seashore home. I may just go.