While we were lunching one day, Farouk said he wanted to see my eternity rings, one of sapphires, one of rubies and one of diamonds, that I’d had for years. Stupidly I took them off and never saw them again. Having confiscated my rings, he summoned the manager of Boucheron. I was later given a ring with emerald chips, a gold cigarette holder and a large vulgar clip inlaid with multicoloured stones that was pinned onto my evening dress like some badge of merit. Madame Kahil, who had a reputation for being an envious troublemaker, tried to persuade me to ask him for some earrings to go with the clip, but all I wanted was to have my eternity rings back.
The time came for the entourage to proceed to Cannes. My suitcase was returned to London by Bag and Cyril and I travelled back leisurely through the Dordogne. When I went to the Egyptian Embassy to collect the suitcase, with it was a crate of mangoes, a present to Cyril, as I had said he loved them so. Later, we read in a newspaper that, in the Cannes Casino, one of Farouk’s opponents had dropped down dead at the chemmy table.
*Formerly Joan Eyres-Monsell. She married John Rayner and then Paddy Leigh-Fermor.
†Angelica Weldon was an American girl inclined to alcoholism.
‡The writer Henry Green.
§Peter Watson’s main interests were modern painting and music, and he financed Horizon from 1939 to 1949.
Chapter XI
Marriage
Diary
October 5, 1950
After a year’s talk of marriage, we have decided that this is to be the day. Cyril, very slow in getting up, has even talked of putting it off, on the pretext of having time to find another witness. I tell him that, if he does, he shouldn’t go on living in Queen Street, as it puts me in a false position with Chuff who, after all, has been paying my rent. ‘An ultimatum!’ C says. Later, tells me I am nagging him into it. We have to pick up PC Boot, who is to be the main witness, and as soon as we leave the house we immediately start quarrelling. C insists on telling me the way to Elham, as though I am new to the district. He studies maps and forgets to direct me at the crossroads. Then says to me, ‘I thought you knew the way.’ I say, ‘I thought you were directing me.’ We find Boot dressed in civvies, waiting on the kerb outside his house. He has a very solemn air, especially for the occasion. Cyril makes an effort to be friendly and asks him about the animals getting their winter coats, as Boot has told me the badgers are growing extra thick fur which indicates a hard winter. We arrive late at the Registry. Announce ourselves, then Cyril suddenly disappears. ‘Is he a nervous type?’ Boot asks. A clerk comes in and presumes Boot to be the future husband. Very pleased, Boot says, ‘If I weren’t a married man, I’d take his place readily.’ Cyril reappears looking harassed, laden with glasses, a bottle of champagne and a second witness he has picked up in the street. We are all taken into a room with bare walls except for an enormous warning about the penalties of making a false statement. Boot points it out to me and grins. I am reminded of Huis Clos and feel like giggling. The woman official starts her dissertation. ‘Do you take this woman …’ Cyril is asked to repeat the necessary words which he does with great solemnity. ‘Do you take this man …’ and I after him have to say the same words … Towards the end of my recitation I get terrible giggles and can barely complete the sentence. Am reprimanded by the woman wedder. Feel furious at being ticked off and forget my hysteria.
Then follows a long silence, but for the clerk scratching away on a sheet of paper. We are both asked to sign away our freedom. When PC Boot has to sign, the clerk says, ‘Your initials are N N?’ ‘No sir, W W …’ ‘And they stand for?’ ‘William Wellington,’ says Boot proudly. We discuss whether or not to drink the champagne there but decide to go off to a pub. Stop just outside Elham. Boot hailed by everyone in the saloon. They all get a matey welcome. Cyril having stated that his father belonged to a Yorkshire Light Infantry Regiment, Boot points to a dreary-looking soak in the corner and says, ‘’E come from Yorkshire, Gov.’ C very shocked that I couldn’t remember my father’s regiment. Cross words exchanged all the way back. C insists on trying out a new route which meant taking narrow winding lanes and backing into car tracks to enable cars to pass, so I arrive late for a dentist’s appointment. A cold lunch in sullen silence in Maidstone.
October 8 Queen Street
Still fearing there might be headlines on the front page, ‘Writer Weds Friend of Farouk’, Cyril goes downstairs to get the newspapers, but rather disappointed to find no reference at all. Puts on kettle. When I suggest he makes the toast he says, ‘Don’t know how to make toast.’ Makes tea, drinks half a cup and sinks back into the bed like a dying goose, still in his dressing-gown. ‘What is it, bright spark? …’ ‘I have a swollen stomach,’ he says, ‘and feel sick.’ Sinks further into the pillows and closes his eyes, with an expression of resigned suffering. Later, I ask how he feels. ‘On the defensive,’ he says. And, when I ask why, puts it down to a feeling of guilt. ‘Guilt about what?’ ‘Not making the toast when you asked.’ I read the paper. An article on flying saucers. I take a bath, thinking what a slothful husband I’ve hooked! An hour later, I go into the bedroom, Cyril is lying with his eyes closed. ‘Picture of a man with a future,’ I say. He rings up Sonia and complains of his health. Says he thinks he has a bad appendix. After the conversation, seems in a better humour. Asks me to sit beside him and be more sympathetic. Tells me that Sonia had spent the evening with Lucian Freud, who had said how much he worshipped Cyril, that he was the nicest man he knew.
October 10
C collects the newspaper and makes the tea. Has a long session in the bath while I do the laundry. Go into the bedroom later to find him standing naked in an attitude of despair staring into space. Take my bath, return to bedroom and find C still gazing into space. Go into the sitting room, to write a letter, return to bedroom, C still with his back to the room propped against the window ledge. I ask, ‘What is the matter?’ ‘It’s marriage,’ he says. ‘I feel trapped.’
*
Feel very restive and dissatisfied, saddled with a slothful whale of a husband who spends his time soaking in the bath and then plods despondently to White’s where he studies the racing form. He is later seen by PQ wearisomely dragging himself round the expensive antiquaires in Mayfair. Today he went and bought himself a silver coffee set and sat gazing at it enraptured all evening. ‘Who’s going to clean them?’ I asked. ‘I am,’ Cyril said, and proceeded half-heartedly to rub a duster over them. ‘I can see us setting up as housekeeper and butler,’ he said.
An enormous basket of exotic plants arrived today sent by Farouk, with congratulations on my marriage. Pungle returns from White’s looking particularly glum. Ask him why. Goes over his movements of the morning and says he thinks it must be after reading an article on Tasmanian Devils. ‘What was so depressing about that?’ ‘Well, they’re becoming extinct.’ Also said he’d seen Peter Q in the street looking terribly red-faced and ugly, which had depressed him even more.
I had a drink at the Ritz with Peter who was very interested in the Pungle news. I said I was in despair, he seemed so apathetic and gloomy. Peter said he might be pining after Lys. I told him that at the moment, to buck herself up, Lys was consulting five specialists. A psychoanalyst, deportment crank, gland specialist, gynaecologist and a beautician. Peter was concerned about the expense, as indeed we all are. I told him she was trying to inflict as much guilt as possible. Peter said he had seen Pungle first at White’s, where he had not dared approach him for fear of being snubbed, and later plodding up Bond Street lethargically raising his trunk at all the antiquaires.
I got back to find the dear boy lying on the divan. Said he wished he were dead, that anyway he didn’t think he’d live to survive fifty. I looked at the three-piece coffee set which had been so tenderly polished earlier and felt quite touched. Tremendous arguments and discussions about Sussex Place. I say I refuse to live there in its present state of wreckage, that it needs redecorating.
‘What you don’t realise,’ I am told, �
��is that it’s like that because its chief adornment has gone.’ When I enquire what that was, he says, ‘Lys.’
November 4
Further discussions on Sussex Place. I suggest we live on the top floor and let the rest of the house. Pungle not at all pleased with the idea, hankering after all the large rooms, and suggests splitting the house into three. A heated discussion until we are screaming at each other. Feliks telephones and I tell him about the house problem. Says he sees Cyril’s point of view, that I should move in and let him keep all the large rooms. ‘You’d like us to move into the attic and have it oak-beamed,’ Cyril says to me. Then, decides he would rather sell the house as otherwise the Adornment Lys might take up residence with her young man, or might start demanding her premium back. He mellows in the bath. Later, we go into the market for the rations. Pungle insists on buying some Dublin Bay prawns at one and sixpence each. He carries the basket and plods after me. I leave him in Heywood Hill cashing a cheque. Later, appears laden with books on gardening, having become a great enthusiast, has plans for planting a selection of rare exotic tropical creepers at the cottage. Expresses desire to visit Kew again to see some rare specimens. Toot rings up and asks if I’d like to leave for Cairo as he has bought a new plane. I ask how many engines it’s got. Tells me it’s a one-engined Beachcraft but a nice BIG engine. ‘You’ll have to get a few more to tempt me,’ I say.
First Married Christmas 1950
Pungle took me to stay with Heber-Percy (Mad Boy). We both travelled with a trunk apiece as though for an extensive visit. Left late on Saturday to avoid all other journeying Christmassers. Jowly Pungle effusively greeted at Swindon station. I slunk into the back seat of the car unobserved. Met by Garth at the house who acted as hostess and said, ‘Pleased to meet you again.’ He poured us out a delicious iced gin cocktail sugared round the edge. The house was very centrally heated, a strong smell of incense that Garth said was smouldering rosemary they’d put on the fire. The rest of the house-party did not appear until dinner. Clarissa Churchill had not changed, as I had been made to, for she had no evening dress with her. There were two other queens. A very pretty American who didn’t say much but seemed intelligent and kept pursing up his mouth; a blue-eyed airman called Ken, snobbish and self-assured who never stopped talking, anxious to be a social success. The whole weekend I found a strain. Lengthy meal sessions, messy food with little wine and a row of watchful eyes with everyone making guarded statements or listening to Pungle holding forth. We had dinner with Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley. The host talking politics without drawing breath: it was like listening in to Radio Luxembourg. I kept switching off and tuning in, depending on whether or not I made any headway with the American on my right who talked about his mother. During the fruit course one of the table flaps collapsed and all the port decanters crashed in a heap. I was accused of kicking it loose because no one was paying me any attention. After dinner Hubby inspected all the rare pieces of ornamental china in their sitting room and, after tilting them upside down, declared each one in turn to be a fake.
Got some dirty looks from Cyril when I barged into Mosley’s smoking den and disturbed the men drinking port during the segregation of the sexes. The following day we dined with the Betjemans and had the best meal over the whole of Christmas, and a great wine tasting session. I suddenly turned on Hubby when he was talking with Clarissa, at the further end of the table, and screamed, ‘My God, you are a bore with your shrub talk all the time.’ Everyone stopped talking and looked very shocked. Then there was a poet guessing game which Hubby got right every time and even I managed to spot a Spender, and felt extremely proud.
January 1, 1951 Queen Street
Am trying to cut down on cigarettes, have managed to reduce them to ten a day. Imagine I feel much better, less cotton wool in the head. Both wake at noon. Screams for food from Hubby who has put on an inch of jowl since Christmas. Tell him he must go on an orange juice diet, but I produce some eggs and bacon. Then he says he has devious things to do. Reappears at six, when I ask what he has been up to, says he won’t tell me as he will be scolded. Catch him furtively eyeing all the empty wall space. ‘You’ve been looking at those antique desks again,’ and he chuckled. I ask him where he thinks he will find the money. But all he was interested in was explaining them all in detail. He hasn’t been muttering so much lately. On bad guilt days, he remains in the bath and groans, dense steam seeps from under the door and spreads round the flat, and I hear an ectoplasmic voice crying, ‘A million miles from here,’ pause, ‘A million miles from here,’ or, ‘I wish I were dead.’
Robert Kee came round in the evening, popping dexedrines and benzedrines into his mouth as though they were boiled sweets. He jokingly asked if I was prepared to do any pill swops. He eventually went off to a Milner Street party. Poppet reported next day it had been absolute hell. When she arrived, one drunk woman was being carried out and several people wandering up and down the stairs gripping the bannister. Xan was pouring gin down his throat. While one woman stripped, other women were sprawled on sofas combing their hair.
January 3
Wake up late with a sore throat and no energy.
In the evening, Cyril suddenly announces he is off to have a drink with Janetta. I telephone the Bastard and go round to see him. When I return C is in the throes of packing a suitcase, but after enclosing two shirts says weakly, ‘You can finish it for me. I shall cook myself a sole,’ and with a martyred look begins to consult a cookery book. ‘I’d rather you packed your suitcase, and I cooked the sole,’ I tell him, but it ends in us both reading our respective books.
Natalie having installed herself at Sussex Place rings up from Pungle’s bed, comatosed by drugs, and suggests she rents Sussex Place for three months at ten guineas a week. Pungle goes round to discuss it and finds her well dug in surrounded by dregs of tea and half-eaten scraps of food. Pretends that, by lying in his bed and thinking about him, she is in a permanent state of sexual excitement. Pungle flees nervously saying he must not keep the taxi waiting. The actor Bobby Newton rings us up next day asking where we have hidden his ‘darling little wife’.
*
We are both hibernating like dormice, sometimes sleeping on until past noon, hardly ever going out, as it is so bitterly cold. Have had Janetta and Derek Jackson to dinner. I spent two days and nights fretting over a piece of meat that the newspapers claim is three-year-old refrigerated string. Had it stewing the whole of Sunday and took great pains over a wine sauce. A special selection of wines were fetched from Hubby’s cellar, a Margaux 1900 and a Chateau Latour 1924. Just before the guests arrived Hubby and I had a squabble as he claimed the vintages are far too good to waste on sauces. We polish off with a fine assortment of cheese including a fromage Monsieur. Joan rings up next day and asks Pop how he liked Derek. Cyril thinks him a jolly nice Cuss; ‘He really does have a great feeling for claret.’
*
Had a glimpse of Augustus (John) today looking very arty, wearing his beret about the house and puffing at his pipe. Poppet tells me he wears his beret night and day, as he says it keeps out the draughts, and that she went into his room the other morning with some coffee to find him fast asleep with the beret lying beside his head on the pillow, but when he woke up he very firmly placed it back on his head. And, this morning, Dodo (his wife) went into his room when he was out and discovered a half-drunk glass of Irish whisky. So when he came in she ticked him off and asked him what he was doing drinking whisky on the sly. He looked very sheepish and said that he had felt very low that morning and he needed a pick-me-up. I asked Poppet if there had been signs of high spirits as a result (had she heard him humming?) but she said the only sound coming from his room was coughs and grunts. He has been kept on a wine regime after the Bogomoletz injections,* as otherwise his hand gets too shaky to paint. He is very deaf now and has the radio blaring away all the time, but is otherwise very quiet about the house. Poppet is getting much too keen on Robert Kee – it will only lead to disaster. Cy
ril is going through a pining-after-Lys phase. They have had secret meetings every afternoon this week. Cyril compares her to a juke-box. She says how wonderful her lover Andrew is and how Cyril would like him, because everything is dust and ashes to Andrew, and how once he came into the room and, ‘What do you think, Cyril, he said? “Kiss me Lys,” and I kissed him, and what do you think happened, Cyril? We fell into a trance.’ ‘You mean you were unconscious?’ Cyril asked. ‘We fell into a complete trance for twenty minutes.’ So Cyril asked her why she didn’t many him, but she complained he was too narrow-chested. And, another time Andrew came into the room and said, “Everything is dust and ashes to me,” and then Cyril, what do you think he did? He rushed out of the room and beat his head against the wall.’ Apparently, I am the most ruthless homebreaker! And all Cyril’s friends think he must have gone mad to marry me.
Lys has become the toast of White’s – the toasters, it seems, being two elderly gentlemen with sportscars. ‘But the trouble with me is, Cyril, I just don’t care about money.’
Last night we dined with the Slaters. Had a tremendous stuff, as for two weeks there has not been any money, except when Chuff has given me some, and sometimes I don’t own up to having any, as then it goes on lavatory paper. We had several helpings of duck and then played a boring horse game that Humphrey had invented which, he kept stressing, required a great deal of skill. The only skill, as far as I could see, was being able to count up to seven.
*
Cyril has gone out early to meet his mother who is arriving from South Africa. Our char, Mrs Munro, is very stern about Cyril and thinks he is a selfish, lazy man but he looks kind, she says. That was when she first came to clean; now she states that, if she were me, she’d wring his neck in a week! When I told her that at the end of March we would be leaving Queen Street because it was too expensive, she said, ‘Oh dear! Mrs Connolly, you won’t like being stuck out in the country, will you?’ When I pointed out that Mr Connolly would like it even less, she said in surprised tones, ‘Oh! So he’s punishing himself as well!’ She always has a drip on the end of her nose and, whenever she brings me the yoghurt in the morning, I can barely eat it. I find being penniless one appreciates things much more. Tea with Chuff at the Ritz now is an enormous treat. All the sandwiches taste particularly delicious, whereas we used to think they were quite disgusting.
'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More' Page 12