The Making of a Writer

by Gail Godwin

I said, “No, I bought it.”

  “Well, it’s still nice. Let’s go and sit down somewhere.”

  We walked a complete circle around the station. Nothing was open except a gigantic chilly waiting room with rows of long brown counters. Three or four people sat at stools in front of the first counter. The rest were closed. The waitress, a hag who looked as if her life had been one disappointment after another, handed us two menus.

  “I’m starved,” Roxanne said. “I think I’ll have a sandwich.”

  “No sandwiches at this hour,” the woman snapped.

  Roxanne looked displeased. “Oh hell, then coffee. Bring us two coffees.”

  The woman nodded & went away. Roxanne & I waited. Once or twice we began, “So, here we are . . . after a year” or “Well, what’s new,” but each time we stopped & looked after the waitress, as if the arrival of our cups of coffee were the only proper beginning of this conversation for which we had both waited so long. I was in a daze. My heart throbbed and although I knew I was not drunk, I felt drunk. I thought of sleep. I wondered how soon I could politely tell Roxanne that I had to go back to the Village and get some sleep. At the same time I was afraid to tell her I had a place to sleep, afraid that she might say “Well, I don’t. Look, can I come with you?” She didn’t however. She said she was spending the night with an old classmate who worked at the UN. I was vastly relieved.

  She had not changed at all. She spoke in the peculiar way she had, always showing her teeth, which were large, square & slightly crooked, but very white. She jangled her bracelets as she talked, occasionally spreading her fingers wide and staring at her slender flexed hands. She varied her conversation between recounting her experiences in Spain & Copenhagen & finally Boston and extracting from me any little secrets which she thought she might find interesting.

  “So, how’s, uh, B.?” she would say through her white teeth. “Did you ever sleep with him?”

  She tucked away my answers and continued her own chronicle. She had sickened, she said, of the Latin men “with their hot gnashing pearly little teeth, their Sacred Heart medals banging against you in bed.” There had been one in Sevilla—she had gone there for Holy Week—who had asked her to marry him.

  “He took me to church & to meet his mother. D’you know what? She thought I was Mexican! I almost did marry him, you know, then he started talking about how he wanted to make children with me. I saw myself shut up all day, every day, in some little hacienda, walking around & around with a big belly. He was terribly possessive. It would never have worked. But, then, sometimes I wish I had. I had a birthday. I’m twenty-nine, y’know.” She paused, letting these words sink in (as if she had said, “I have leprosy, you know”).

  We left each other at exactly ten o’clock because the big counter had a “Closed” sign on it and the waitress glared at us, the lone survivors. Roxanne fumbled in her pockets. “Gosh, I don’t have any change. Could you?” I paid the check, tipped the woman 15¢, and went out of the big hall. Penn Station bustled with late-night travelers & commuters. There was the color of Broadway playbills & windows full of pipes, perfumes, magazines & transistor radios. Roxanne left me at my subway entrance. I gave her the number of J.’s telephone & she promised to call at ten o’clock the next morning. She wanted me to read the parts of the novel she had finished & reworked.

  J. was waiting for me at his apartment. He gave me another Scotch & had one himself. He had been reading & drinking while I was gone, he said. He was pleasantly alcoholic & we exchanged whimsical talk, tinged with the late-night flavor of the unreal. “Seeing you in such a rapid fashion, ‘between continents, ’ has the necessary otherworldly quality for my makeup,” he said. “I wish we could slice time into something besides days. But wait. Perhaps we have.”

  NOVEMBER 4

  SUNDAY

  The new philosophy, the non-urgency, has helped my writing. I have no need to say anything now, other than what I have to say. The Wests are entertaining Lord & Lady Somebody, complete with Nanny and their children. The Wests are in their act, they are in the image they have of themselves. The gracious, well-informed American wife in tweeds, the rather eccentric husband—oh, but he was a colonel and has a DSO. Eugenio was sitting erect in a chair in his cold room, reading history with earplugs. Stella composes letters in her room or dozes under the eider-down. Andrew & Michel have gone to the Budapest String Quartet. Peter, 227 nineteen, has good study habits. He sits at his desk and reads to Beethoven. It has been nice, the Chelsea experience, but I have been far too comfortable here and it is time to go.

  Mr. West exaggerating to Stella: “Gail’s been with us for TWO YEARS and then bang! Seven days notice. Snap! Just like that.”

  Tomorrow the Spanish girl encroaches and I will have no place to call my own until next weekend.

  This place reeks with intrigue of the most amateurish category. A continual buzzing. Stella has been chosen as go-between. She will probably come with me. Now the Wests are worried. They wish I would leave immediately. It is uncomfortable for them, they say. WHEN, exactly, did I say I was leaving? It can’t be quick enough. But I have worked at “the friendship” too long. This time it will not be easy. They read this journal. I think it is comical. I do not put anything past them. Their loyalties have the endurance of an eighteen-year-old boy’s orgasm. What a damn pity. Still, I am not going to inconvenience myself. I have absolute assurance in this situation that they have been underhanded about the whole thing. Let them writhe in their uncertain hearts.

  Sleep all day, one won’t sleep all night. What if Peter W. is married? I certainly shouldn’t want him. The group chortles downstairs. There is something subhuman about people grouped before a shadow box capable of eliciting their deepest responses. No use to worry about anything. What good will it do? It’s bad for my machine. If James calls this week, I can give him some of my luggage. Will it be cold in the new apartment? Will it be badly furnished? Will it be lonely? Chortle, fools, chortle.

  NOVEMBER 5

  This is Guy Fawkes Day. The firecrackers have begun. Peter hasn’t called. Two clocks are ticking away—8: 15 p.m. Work tomorrow and the cold goes on. I am utterly exhausted. Mrs. West asked if I would mind sleeping in Michel’s room—he is away—so the French girl could start off in my room. I said yes, I would mind. They know, I think, to leave well enough alone. Where, by the way, is James?

  NOVEMBER 6

  What a test for the New Attitude. No word from B. No word from James. No word from Peter W. Half-dead with a cold. Have to pick up stakes on Saturday and move. Hate my job.

  BUT:

  I can still see that I have myself—every bone, brain tissue, and blood cell dedicated to one cause: my preservation.

  I have enough faith in B. and James to refrain from misinterpreting their silence.

  I do not even KNOW Peter W. All I know is the image I created out of my own fancy.

  The cold will go away.

  The job, even though frustrating, pays well.

  So shut up, shut out the world, and live till 7: 00 a.m., November 7, when you have your day mapped out for you.

  NOVEMBER 7

  It is one of those times when things are happening to everybody. On November 20, Sir Reginald Watson-Jones operates on Stella’s leg. She has gone about it quietly, patiently, & efficiently. We talked about the accident, the great unmentioned subject. When Stella said “Did we ever talk about the accident?” it was her way of admitting me past the last barrier. So I have another friend in the world.

  And Miss Patricia Jane Farmer is quitting. Ostensibly to marry Pepe. The Faithful One back home. But did I detect resignation rather than the above-it-all rapture expected from a future bride? And if she desperately loved him, would she go skiing in Austria for a month before jetting back to him? It does sound as if her “I do” will be, in effect, “I quit.”

  Late last night, the shock of transatlantic travel wore off and I knew that Asheville was all over and the fall of ’62 is a reality only in a par
t of my brain cells. It hurt like hell. There is something diabolical about jet travel. Monie sent a note (a flowered card with “I miss you”). How could she know what that pastel sentimentality did to my calm cool sublimity?

  “Haven’t anything to say that’s different or new; just thought I’d like to let you know how much I’m missing you” was the verse. And the whole fabric of that life was there in her note.

  I suppose you are back in London though we have not heard. K. mailed your package last week. The pipe is in a little box with your things. It’s very nice. I finally nagged (her words) K. into shopping for a real littleovercoat for Rebel. She said he looked lovely in Sunday School today. Hope you are feeling fine—we all are—your mother said tell you she would write as soon as the election was over.228 They are all still running wild. Still some very beautiful trees; across the street from me are two very large ones. One a lovely rose and the other gold. We saw B. a few days ago. K. talked to him. I was coming from the librarywith books so only said good morning—he gave me a big smile—said he had not heard from you. Though I suppose it was too soon as it was about Tuesday. Please let us hear.

  On the back of the card, just to get it all squeezed out, it says “American Greetings.”

  How can they be there and I be here? And then one of them writes a few words & sticks a 15¢ stamp with the Statue of Liberty on the front and ploomp! I am all choked up.

  But this is the right way for me. I’m certain of it. It’s better to hurt & appreciate than to stultify and not feel.

  But not to feel so much. I haven’t written B. and I won’t until I get control.

  Next week I will be tucked away on Green Street. It will be warm, at least, and I will then write, since there will be no other choice, no people at all.

  James leaves for Spain Friday unless his plans have changed. I probably won’t see him until he gets back. Wonder if he’ll come around to 21 Old Church Street and Mr. West will meet him stony-faced at the door with the little bit of news? But no, James will write from his little jaunt down the Costa del Sol. He has to share his discoveries, if nothing else.

  Brahms’s Violin Sonata no. 3229 —

  If Peter W. has slipped out of my orbit, well, he never was really IN, was he?

  NOVEMBER 8

  James took me to dinner tonight. He leaves for Spain tomorrow. The thing that disturbs me is that there is absolutely no passion between us.

  I must admit my calm is shattered.

  The fact is, I feel real affection for him, and there are the shared experiences of the wet gray unreal summer. It won’t be like that again. I needed him this summer and he was there. I don’t need him now. Oh, but he is nice. There is only one Gemini.230

  What the hell am I going to do? I think it may be a mistake to let men know I can take care of myself.

  NOVEMBER 9

  On the credit side of the ledger, tomorrow is Saturday and no problems. I have only to pack and wash out some underclothes, wash my hair. On the debit side: B. hasn’t written and I don’t think Peter W. ever planned to make another entrance. Thus I have the few hours of gray daylight, the frightening prospect of survival and all alone.

  The woman who came into the office today made a deep impression on me. If Dr. No231 hadn’t purged me of all energy, I would write it out. However, there is the long, long weekend. Damn Peter W.

  This retreat for the winter is just about the best thing that could happen. I actually want to write stories and to live in them. How nice to know! I’ll be supporting myself & writing & living. That is a lot to ask. That is better than being married.

  NOVEMBER 10

  SATURDAY

  Rain of the kind that doesn’t drip. It scrapes against your face. Outside is pneumonia weather. Each day I like other people less and less, God forgive me, but I sat downstairs in the living room making every effort to be sociable & the sound of Stella’s lilting voice going on and on about popcorn, punctuated by Mrs. West’s “Oh, we will, we will, ” sent me rushing back to my retreat.

  Tomorrow morning, I get up, dress, collect my little odds & ends, & take off in a taxi. It is stifling in here. Absolutely. The new flat is big, spacious, clean, warm & convenient. I do not like the chintz curtains or bedspread, but that can certainly be changed. I shall ask for Tuesday afternoon off & go to get some material at Pontings & have them put hanging tapes on them; then paint the desk, get a mirror from my antique-dealer friend, & I’ll be comfortable for the winter. There is no time here for self-pity. I am a big girl now and have learned that (1) one can’t have everything perfect in one day, (2) nobody can be relied on 100 percent to do anything right. This afternoon I took a walk up one side of King’s Road & down the other, looking in antique shops, watching a small “area parade” (it’s Memorial Day): Englishmen in overcoats with their war ribbons pinned on the lapels marching briskly, terribly soberly down the King’s Road. Winter is really here. Stella & I are at lance points. I came in from lunch saying that such-and-such was not in good taste and then Peter chimes in with his nineteen-year-old know-it-all “Good taste is relative.” And then Stella sings, “I’m inclined to agree with Peter.” She’s always inclined to agree with anyone, except me. So, I must now concentrate on doing things as well as possible, as cheaply as possible, making a completely independent life for myself. I cannot count on anyone: not B. to rescue me, nor James to come regularly to the flat, nor any novel I write to sell. Not yet. I somehow think this winter would be made increasingly brighter with the return of Peter W. However, I can’t guarantee that. And when he calls here again I will be gone. Oh, well. I’m alive & don’t owe any money—except to the government.

  How does living reality become journal reality, and then, years later, story reality? Nowhere in her 1962 journals does Gail Godwin indicate that she will be writing a story that will have as its core the Wests’ behavior and place in history, yet years later they will form the basis of the title novella in her collection Mr. Bedford and the Muses.

  Carrie Ames, the narrator of the novella “Mr. Bedford,” reflects, “I am still far from ‘figuring out’ the Eastons [the Wests’ counterparts], which is why, I suppose, they have remained so tantalizing to my imagination.” For Gail, the figuring out took shape through the medium of her journals.

  About ten years after her U.S. Travel Service years, a dream caused Gail to consult her youthful record and transform it. “I wanted to live in that English time again—but with the perspective that time and distance and imagination can bestow,” she reflected in the “Author’s Note” at the end of Mr. Bedford and the Muses. “There were memory gaps, but I would fill them in with fiction , which, as every writer knows, is often the best way to get at the important truths that lie beneath ‘what really happened.’”

  A comparison of Gail’s journals and her story shows how particularly she selected details to maintain the right tone in “Mr. Bedford.” She doesn’ t mirror journal entries until page 25, when Carrie starts her job at the Travel Service, and page 28, when Carrie gets a glimpse of the Eastons’ ready-to-travel bedroom setup, a sight “both touching and sinister.”

  Preceding these references, Godwin places two curious stories: a look into the distant future, when Carrie sees Nigel, a hapless fellow boarder, acting in a soap opera; and the retelling of Mr. Easton’s story about a woman whose dress lifted while she was playing the piano to reveal a tail whipping around. The first story is so incidental, its inclusion can only be for effect, to blur reality and fantasy. The second story plays a different role. The Wests were living in a delusion outside of their present time.

  NOVEMBER 14

  London is the best purgatory I know of. My first morning on Green Street, I emerged to find the blue sky back again & all Grosvenor Square shimmered with golden smoke & morning promise. It was invigorating.

  The Wests almost pulled me under. I felt for a while there that I was a completely undesirable person.

  Peter W. is silence itself. I wonder if I shall ever see him
again. Well, at least he got me into DHL and that is a real find. Of course, there could be all sorts of excuses: (1) parents in town, (2) hard work, (3) giving me a hard time, (4) disinterest. However, there is absolutely nothing I can do to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. Therefore there is really no point in thinking further about it. Either he has reasons and will call when he is free, or he does not wish to see me again. What “either/or” could be simpler?

  NOVEMBER 15

  It is such an ordeal just taking care of what are commonly called “incidentals.” One has to learn that a can of soup is too much for one person. And Jaffa-sweetened orange juice is foul. And there must be a lamp. I saw a very nice floor lamp for 67S. 9d. and a shade for 35s. Then to buy bulbs (150-watt small for overhead); then Indian madras and white rickrack and I shall make something interesting—6s. a yard, four yards, and voila! Also the paint. Then everything will be fine. One has to make things habitable. Tomorrow: paint, £1; madras, £1; rickrack, 10s.

  I’ve lost all drive to write. Just round and round, dear diary, like a stargazing teenager with tunnel vision. I can’t remember when I have wanted to have my own man so much. B. asks Mother if she’s heard from me. She says he’s puzzled because he hasn’t heard. But she may be exaggerating. I can’t believe Peter W. didn’t accept the challenge. This is just a time of waiting. God, November is a bitter month.

  NOVEMBER 17

  Bought a lamp and am not sorry, walked across Grosvenor Square and had tea in the Italian restaurant where I cussed the girl out once last summer. Back across the square. Nobody but the lone bobbies patrolling the Embassy.

  Edwards232 is sanding the floors. I keep making conversation because it is the easiest way out. He tells a good story. Sarah Churchill never paid him £40 for redecorating her flat; a rich antique-collector, horse-breeder homosexual lies on my left, a Chihuahua-owning one on my right. Landlords rent flats in London with the provisions (1) you completely redecorate them (2) you agree to leave on a week’s notice. They get the suckers to decorate the flats & then give them notice. It seems smart not to pay bills here & to get away with cheating the other guy. I’m not having any. Thank God the Southrons233 are human beings as well as landlords.