by Gail Godwin
Jim: “It’s not consciously ‘writing, ’ and that’s good. Remind me to discuss with you later ways you can bring up Father Flynn—even through the use of colors.”
I can’t sleep and I only want to think further of him. I may not run through him quite so quickly for the simple reason that he’s progressing at an equal rate with me.
What almost put me off was, I think, his flip way of speaking. He seemed to me to be a “smarty.” Some of the flip in his voice, I finally discovered, is simply a remnant of a Russian accent.
And funny how I am affected by little things like the fact that his jackets have two slits in the back. The fact that he is short. When I think that I actually deliberately stood him up one evening to have a drink with Bob Briggs. If he hadn’t come around of his own curiosity the next day, I wouldn’t have bothered again. The turning point came when I saw that he was human behind this flip exterior. He actually cooked for me one night. There was something in that offering of that very well cooked steak, something in the way he kissed the back of my hand (he has very warm lips) that made him at least welcome the next time he came by. Then when he came last Saturday, he seemed the only really valid person in the room. Stella & Stuart at cross-purposes, I in the role of nervous hostess.
By Wednesday, I wished he would telephone, and when he did on Thursday, I broke a dinner date to meet him. That was February 14 and the first time I was intensely aware of him. We went to the Embassy cocktail lounge & I began drinking Scotches to his lagers, even though the barman set the lager in front of me. J. doesn’t miss much either with his eyes or his ears. And I love his fine appreciation of subtlety. I asked him about himself because I was now interested. His grandfather was an English engineer who became enamored with Communism and actually immigrated to Leningrad. J. was born Dmitri and was there until he was five. Then a German “work camp”—Canada—California. He is still stateless and has no passport. He’s been through some damned inconveniences, but manages to see the humor in it all. (The four lawyers, British Passport Office & Embassy: nobody knew what to do when he’d run out of space on his travel document; finally, the fourth lawyer Scotch-taped a piece of ordinary paper to it.)
It was at the Barley Mow that I really began to see him. This is a very attractive pub. Something about the orange lights, the polished brass rail, the wood, the burnished copper pots & the carpet. There is music—a really tinny barroom kind—and a little stairway, which leads somewhere that looks interesting. There were several characters in there, including a sad-type peroxided female who kept nudging her man’s gonads with the toe of her shoe. Three Scotches. And we’re talking about masks.
“What makes me mad is when people take my mask at face value.”
“But you must expect it. The most you should look for usually is for someone to see just far enough to perceive you are wearing a mask.”
And he said Yeats had seen this & he should know since he did his thesis on Yeats.
He’s got a consciousness that seems to match mine and therefore he’s worth more. I can enjoy putting my face against his, touching him, because of an awareness that there’s so much going on in that body. So much more than in most. I must offer something of the same to him because he said at the Barley Mow: “You seem to be able to enjoy things fully. That’s why I wanted to see you tonight.”
Today I went to Selfridges and bought things I wouldn’t ordinarily have bought just so I could have packages to carry when I went to the lamp department to look for him. We went to the coffee bar (at his insistence), and then he came by later—about two. Not much “personal” talk, mostly about his doctorate and plans to teach. And Henry James. I think James has more to offer me than any other writer at this stage. He’s so civilized, it’s sheer joy to read him after so many lazy technicians.
I read Portrait275 until 6: 00 a.m. because it was entrancing & because I was afraid again. Went through some of my old writing & found it pretty sad. So conscious of itself. So clever. I think I am on the verge of some new philosophy. For the first time in about ten years, I don’t want to be immoral or even amoral anymore. I want a set of guiding premises chosen by me & followed by me. The writing will come now, I think, because I’m not so obsessed with “catchy subjects.” As soon as I finish “Mourning,”276 I may try one on B. just to see if I can write from a man’s point of view.
Part nine
NIGHTWALK
London
FEBRUARY 27–MARCH 24, 1963
Each part of Gail’s journals has offered us not only an example of her literary e forts and an account of her personal adventures but also something else: the kind of underlying, vital dynamic that serves an author in finding inspiration years later. Gail’s trusting relationship with her journal enables her to bequeath herself material not fully recognized at the time of writing.
In this journal part, Gail continues to develop her story “Mourning,” an important and valuable exploration, which, fourteen years later, will feed Violet Clay. Meanwhile, unscripted, she lives out a story that is related to her imaginative output.
Empathizing with her late father in order to describe the kind of man whose idealism leads to suicide, she falls prey to a succession of symptoms: writer’s block, spiritual visitation, and motivational paralysis. As with Gail’s experience of loneliness in the previous journal part, the reader must tell himself or herself, “This is Godwin’s real life, not her invention!”
[NO DATE]
When Beth Learner’s father committed suicide during the second semester of her junior year in college, she was shocked more from her own lack of grief than from the event which should have summoned it.277
The story of a man’s suicide seen through his daughter’s eyes– mind–point of view. Every fact remembered about it—their times together, father’s past (insert this in the notebook). Cut out the slang; see if you can be original without it.
I
Ambrose Bradshaw has killed himself & he is the main person.278 This is his story. In the first scene, we have the reactions of his immediate family to his death and, through their eyes, get a taste of his character . . . hopefully enough to make one love him, or at least take his side. We are also introduced to Lee, his twenty-year-old daughter by a long-since-dissolved first marriage. It is through her eyes we will know Ambrose.
II
Lee is at a party given by her glittering surgeon-lover. It is the eve of her father’s death but she doesn’t know it. We get a brief insight into her structure—nervous, unsure of her place intellectually and, most acutely, socially. She’s intelligent, emotional—and between introductions to the other characters at this party, which includes the setups stamped with the approval of the Schultzes (explain their criteria & try not to be...)279
FEBRUARY 27, 1963
Went to see This Sporting Life280 —very brutal, full of “truths,” etc.—and I came home in a taxi feeling thoroughly depressed, trying to place myself, thinking all cities were the same at night after a depressing movie— Miami—Asheville—Blowing Rock—Copenhagen—London—
I want to cry or express some definite emotion & then seek further release in The Golden Bowl.281 Dear civilized Henry James! I have never had any desire to rough it.
FEBRUARY 28
Sometimes I get a little bit hungry for “coziness.” Farewell dinner with the Southrons who are emigrating to France & BH & Howard who leave London tomorrow.282 She snuggles up to him so. Will I ever find a man who’s inexhaustible? “After a time, you get to recognize certain qualities repeating themselves in the men you like,” said Dorothea, the new girl, who has run away from her English psychiatrist husband once already.
The National Anthem from Radio Frankfurt . . . Am I staying away too long? But where, then, is my place at home? I have no desire to go back to newspapering. I don’t want to go garretting in New York like Lorraine. What I must do, then, is stick here with the writing for a little longer (after tax & rent I still have about £10 a week & let’s not kid our
selves, I can live higher off the hog here than in the U.S.A.) I think— no, I know—that B. is wrong for me. He’s underdeveloped in many aspects. He, for one, would never understand the writing. And he dreams big but lives small. So that knocks him out. I must be brutal about this so as not to waste any more time.
The new book is on a scale bigger than anything I’ve attempted.
I am tired of people who overwrite. I was among the most guilty in this department.
I keep thinking—there’s something just around the corner I should remember.
Hot summer sun. June 18, 1955 . . . her eighteenth birthday. And it was being born again. All traces of the old life had been swept away. The view, the people, the sounds, the smells, even the air was different. She had petitioned in her dreams to be rescued by a stranger, to be given a new life, and her request had been granted. For now, it was enough to be. For once, instead of dredging up past experiences or dreaming up new ones, she was content with What Is. She studied his face, line by line, knowing he was aware of her doing it, expecting her to do so. She was extra-conscious of her aliveness, felt the blood flowing through her limbs, felt the sun drawing it up out of its dark winter layers, tingling up to the surface of her skin. She was getting a tan. She compared her own arm with his. It was already darker, with fine golden hairs to his dark ones. But the blood, flowing beneath the skin of both arms, was the same blood. Upon this revelation, she could draw imaginative sustenance for literally hours.
Ambrose—283
Part II must be oh so carefully tailored. Lee is comparing the pictures of Ambrose and Ben. Ambrose suggests (this must be conveyed, not stated) a love of life, a sense of humor, devil-may-care generosity—then she recalls the last time she saw him before Christmas. This must be superbly done with all of Ambrose’s goodness showing but at the same time a hint of what was to come.
Ambrose retained the place of honor on her tidy desk in full view of her bed. His crooked smile was the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes.284
Then we go to the next day. She is in class. A messenger comes. Somehow (and this must be brought across by a hint, something during their last meeting), she knows he did not die of natural causes.
“How did he die?” she asked, not because she herself didn’t know, she had already guessed the minute the teacher had called her name, but because she wanted to make sure this girl did not know.
Then to her room, collapses. Mrs. Stikeleather comforts her in a rather macabre but satisfying way by dredging up memories of her late husband, almost forgetting herself at times. She returns beaming, gives her (from her own hidden resources in some well-hidden corner of the white bedroom) what is known in Southern drinking circles as a “double jigger” of Kentucky Gentleman. Some real good homegrown philosophy should come across here. Then Mrs. S. takes the liberty of calling Ben.
MARCH 6
The dentist is over with and my well-cared-for healthy American teeth have been given a clean bill of health.
Dinner with Doreen. (How she hammers the head off a subject. “But, back to Kipling, don’t you think he was a superb representative of his time?” She is so careful, she is almost not real.) And Dorothea & her psychiatrist husband. In the first place, I don’t see why she married him; but once she did, she had to be able to find some redeeming qualities. I was able to draw him out a little bit. He is shy, wants to be thought clever (oh, desperately), and is a real gentleman. Also has a gentle sense of irony. At least Dorothea & I agreed upon one thing: It’s nice to have a man to go home with.
The book is getting difficult, but now I love doing it.
This weekend, finish chapter 1—
I wrote a synopsis of “Ambrose.” What the story is about & what I propose to do. I have always hated these (I used to labor over my proposals on college term papers) but it does force you to look where you are going.
I have still not worked out all the “relevant elements” in Ambrose’s background. And I think just a few touches on the mother will be sufficient. Also, Ben must be “done.”
MARCH 10
SHIT—SHIT—SHIT . . . It is Sunday and I haven’t scratched the surface. I am beginning to think that I am a trite person with trite ideas. My damnation is to consider myself & my ideas unique. There are about seventy million as “unique” as Gail Godwin Cole Kennedy. There is so much—always increasing itself. I cannot catch greased lightning. In front of me are Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary and Roget’s. I haven’t even glimpsed their possibilities.
Everything is sad & unreasonable & I can’t talk to anyone. Everything I have even glimpsed has already been thought of a million times by everybody else.
Went to La Dolce Vita285 by myself. I have found that when I can’t write, it is more profitable to go out, raise hell, sink myself into humanity (like Alden286 & the jazz club last night) or go to see a good film. This was, perhaps, the best I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t so neatly packaged. There were lots of people. It successfully reproduced life in the living of it. It was highly individual, no type-casting, etc.
Again tonight, the helplessness of communication struck me. There was a very pensive, high-cheek-boned boy in a white raincoat who walked down the aisle & sat two rows in front of me. If I had been brave, I would have gone and changed my seat & sat beside him. But while I was deciding, someone else took the empty seat. And besides, do many people even notice who sits next to them in movies? I feel the quiet, mysterious tension that settles over me before I meet someone new. That’s the best time of all: when I’ve just discovered someone & have his whole depth to explore. Not all promise a challenge at first. These did. Most of them wore off, but it was great while it lasted.
Is it lack of imagination? Do I, did I, after all, have a bloated dream of triumph? I want to let myself go, to let it all come pouring out, but it won’t come.
After you have given up all hope, go on trying without hope. Sometimes it turns out you were taking yourself so seriously that it clogged your work up.
MARCH 15
It passes. I am written out with Ambrose. Stood with Henry for a full five minutes perceiving Piccadilly Circus. Saw (heard) & clapped Black Nativity.287
Prokofiev’s piano concerto.
The nature of the malaise.
Edifying—is this all we can do? If so, my book cannot be squashed into any preconceived pattern. People must seek their own destinies, never consciously intruding upon the other’s orbit.
Here is a man who has lived in a corner of a little farm community. His orbit has been N.C.—Fla.—N.C. Seasonally. He had a dream, even though he could not name it; was vaguely dissatisfied; wandered to the end of his life not knowing, or perhaps he did know, with awful certainty, & this was the reason he chose the quiet, dark ultimate No-Life rather than any form of life open to him.
1963 Royal Film Performance with James. Princess Margaret was there.
Tiberio’s, a Romanesque supper club with catacomb ceiling, strumming, breathing jazz band & the kitchen in view behind a sheet of red glass.
James & the ghost of last summer. Steadfast James. At least he knows how to arrange a proper evening.
MARCH 21
And the first day of spring and nothing is good enough for “Ambrose.” I see now what a joy, hazard & continued labor good multilayered writing is. I finished the first part—fifteen thousand words—& when it is retyped I will send it to Ursula Winant with a short note.288 She can give me criticism & that’s what I need at this point.
Lately I have been visited routinely by the unnameable. The best I can do is describe it as an almost-touching, a lack, an intimation, a pale, pale illumination. I see that, in my pursuit, although I’ll never completely understand All of It, I am due to discover so much more.
The dreaded time when the Home Service goes off the air—my eyes itch & it is time to go to bed & face the dark.
Ambrose, after a trip to Pine Bluff Alcoholic Sanitorium, fishing out his pack of Luckies: “They said I was . . . wait a
minute, I wrote it on this pack of cigarettes. Here: psycho-neurotic with compulsion to drink.”
MARCH 24
SUNDAY
The paralysis came back. The same nullifying one that laid me out at twenty-two in the Robert Clay Hotel in Miami in 1959 so that I could not even read a book, write a letter, or go down & swim in the pool with Tennessee Williams in his bathing cap.289 I do not know what one does to set this right. I am a displaced person in a world full of displaced persons, some of whom recognize the fact. I’ve got to get straightened out. New York newspaper strike is over. Gale warnings from Shannon. It got so bad at about 1: 00 today that I saw no alternative but to go for a “purposeful walk.” Up Baker Street with good intentions & then I came unexpectedly upon Mme. Tussaud’s. Paid my 4s. & went the rounds, following the program. One guard scared the daylights out of me; stood very still until I went up and inspected him. Then he moved. I said Jesus Christ. He had a good chortle, evil man, & followed me out into the hall, where we talked as I came out of the Royalty room heading for the horror chamber. He was a foreigner with flashy teeth. “You must have a lot of fun with these people,” I said. “Yes, I do,” he agreed. Then I went over to the Kenco Coffee House on Marylebone High Street and had a ham & mushroom sandwich (I ordered ham & cheese but did not feel like making a fuss with the waitress) and a glass of Russian tea. The place was full of Sunday malaise. Scattered DPs290 in ones and twos. There was a rather dissipated man in a drab green sweater that I would have liked to discuss dyspepsia with, the Sunday kind. We sat, facing our separate views, stealing discreet glances at each other. He got up first and paid his bill, looked back toward my corner as if weighing something, then went out the door where a girl in orange slacks washed her TR-3. Cutting back, I noticed a church & went inside. It was cavernous, with tiers of candles & a man’s face staring at me from behind some candles.291 It was more terrifying than Mme. Tussaud’s. I came out into the sunlight quickly (“Masses Said in Spanish”) and a plane droned overhead, jet engines cutting through a nice cumulus cloud. I thought of the afternoon worshipers coming outside, feeling suddenly uplifted in the fresh air, attributing it to their visit with God, the touching of match to candle. I came home & finished James Baldwin’s novel, 292 eating cookies, peanut butter sandwiches, dreading the time when the book would be finished. It was. Then I crawled into bed with the Sunday papers & three magazines & two books. Finally, I dozed into a swollen, terrifying sleep. All my thoughts & problems & visions appeared in the forms of neat rows of paperback books orderly arranged on the shelves—like the Bumpus bookstore on Baker Street. Woke in a state of near-faint, remembering Tussaud’s eerie profession, 293 decrying my unfinished book.