'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

by Barbara Skelton

  Strained soup before we leave for London. The rain has started anew. I was in a fearful state, haunted by W. Rushing round to his house for ten minutes, I found him thinking of nothing but thermostat fires to heat his sitting room. And all he could talk about was buying a fridge, as his wife had removed the old one with the rest of the furniture.

  *

  Cyril and I lunched with Mark Culme-Seymour and his castanet girl, and then we went on to an afternoon drinking club, the Colony. There was Nina Hamnett looking ghastly, her hair uncombed in wisps all over her head. She had just come out of hospital and had her leg in a splint, and was beckoning and calling to everyone to come and talk to her, but although people heard, they simply turned away. The editor of the Evening Standard, Frank Owen, and his concubine, Anna Maclaren, their faces puffy with drinking, he with bags under his eyes, and she very made-up and corpulent. John Raymond, his pale podgy countenance like an oversize bum, and John Minton* very tipsy.

  *

  The situation is getting more insoluble and distressing. I find it increasingly difficult to think of leaving Cyril and yet I seem to have inwardly made up my mind to do so. Whenever he talks of the future (some fresh plan to tour Kenya with the Davises) I go dead on him. And yet, when I consider being married to W., it does not seem to be what I want at all. I am simply obsessed with him sexually. I no longer remark on his hands or his toenails. And I have told him that he must grow some more black hair on his back. I have even threatened to smear him with some bone lotion to further the process.

  *

  The whole of the lower part of my body aches from the thighs down. It’s the humidity, in spite of two blankets and Cyril’s mother’s hydrax rug spread over the bed. Last night, we drank champagne. Tried to make blinis to use up some stale smoked salmon. Cyril whipped the egg whites and rolled the blinis round the smoked salmon at the finish. Mrs Lea comes today for the first time in a fortnight.

  ‘She’s arrived,’ Cyril calls, ‘the worst is over.’

  The usual banging about in the kitchen and the sound of someone scraping burnt toast. ‘When was the happiest time of your life?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘One always underestimates an experience in retrospect.’

  *

  Wake up thinking of W., but am otherwise very content. I should hate to have to give up living here. It is a bright, glistening morning, the sun is shining into my room, the grass tips gleam and quiver in the breeze, beyond a certain distance the field is enveloped in mist which peters out on the skyline into a blob of treetops; occasionally a branch of the beech stirs, but everything else remains still. Cyril has begun to correct his novel, which he refers to as a thriller; it’s called Shade Those Laurels.

  *

  Thursday night we went again to see Waiting for Godot, this time with Peter Watson. We enjoyed it even more the second time. On the way into the theatre, I remarked on Peter’s overcoat and asked Cyril why he didn’t get one like it; it was fur-lined in imitation beaver that covered the lapels and looked as though it were waterproof. Cyril said he thought it was horrible, like a Belgian taximan’s coat. Afterwards we dined at the Café Royal Grill. A delicious room, mirrors and painted stucco figures. Peter was seething with malice which came out in giggly innuendoes. I was wearing my fitch-lined coat and when Cyril suggested taking it to the cloakroom, Peter, in a high-pitched, ironical tone, said, ‘Oh! Do you think we ought?’ (As though I’d been worried about losing such a precious object.) When I explained that I didn’t like it anyway, he thought I was being affected. I still think he’s the most delightful of Cyril’s friends, although now he has become rather slouchy and shrivelled with a bitter glint in his eye. He made fun of me for liking the painter John Bratby and later, when Cyril was referring to a Tissot in the Proust exhibition which I failed to remember, Peter said, ‘I don’t expect it was realistic enough for her,’ and screeched with laughter as if he’d said the funniest thing. Seeing I was put out, as I couldn’t see why it was that funny, he thought I was piqued and, leaning forward, wiped the front of my pullover free of bread crumbs with an affectionate flick, as though to make up for his quip. He said he thought L’Oeil was a terribly good magazine and how ghastly he’d found London. I reminded them of how three years ago at the Ritz we had all said how much we hated London and yet there was Peter settling into a new flat. We spent the night at Sonia’s. It was quite cosy really, although I kept saying it was like a dreary middle-class secretary’s abode with its terrible oak, let-down leaf table, the soiled blue eiderdown, and tasteless carpets and curtains. Before getting into the bucket bed, I said to Cyril, ‘What about pulling the curtains?’ and he chanted, ‘When the how’s-about-it start, block your ears and loose a fart.’

  *

  Have just read corrected part of Cyril’s novel; he has another hundred pages to do. It is getting much better, but I feel the dinner party goes on too long, perhaps because I have read it before. I feel it should be much better and hoped that after his corrections I would be more stimulated. It is wonderful that he does it at all; I keep asking to read what he has done, hoping to give him encouragement. There has been talk of our going to Sardinia. Cyril bought a guide which says, ‘Sardinian cuisine is simple and pleasing like the people,’ and includes some specialities:

  Succa Tundu or Fregula: a thick meat soup made with semolina.

  Buttariga: dried eggs from mullets.

  La Cauladda: cauliflower soup.

  Cordula: lamb bowels on the spit.

  Giogga Minudda: boiled snails.

  ‘Those don’t sound alarming just seem dull,’ Cyril remarked and went up to bed.

  *

  We have just had John Russell to stay. This morning he rang up to say that the visit had tipped him over into the New Year in capital spirits … he thanked us for putting up so nicely with his dullness. His silence, he said, had been a philosophical one in which he saw himself transported into a simple dwelling of some nineteenth-century emigrant. A disciple of Coleridge, blissfully marooned in the new found land with his dream consort. A life of study, meditation, wholesome fare and early nights with an unspoiled queen of the jungle; we were to take care not to invite him again because he would immediately accept and we would be most welcome at Palazzo Percy† that had fallen in a truly Victorian state of dilapidation.

  *

  Telephone rings at midnight and Cyril gets to it before I am fully awake. It was clearly W., who hung up on Cyril. The result was that Cyril had a bad night. Says he cannot work on his novel if I am going to upset him like that and muttered all night, ‘Poor Cyril’. In the morning I go into his room in search of matches and would like to give him a kiss, but think that by doing so it is giving him too much encouragement. Wrote to W., to say that telephoning was a mistake, asking him not to do it again.

  *

  We have just got back from London after giving Maugham, Alan Searle and Angus Wilson lunch. I arrived in the nick of time, having had a secret meeting with W., in a pub round the corner. He was looking very much less attractive this week; the week before, when I met him after seeing the jumper woman, he appeared to be much slimmer and glamorous even, wearing a new grey overcoat and, with his alert stride and bright brown eyes – compared by some evil tongues to iron jelloids – I felt terribly in love. We went to Overton’s and ate sandwiches. It was only when he broke the news that the following week he could not keep his luncheon date with me as he had to go to some boring bachelor anniversary given by Ben Nicolson that some of the charm wore off.

  At lunch, Maugham said that at his age one could look back on most promising writers of his youth who might just as well never have written a word.

  Cyril had ordered a special piece of beef but everyone complained about loss of appetite. Alan said he suffered from liver trouble and could not eat meat. I have noticed that every meal we’ve had with them he always has to consult Maugham before he can decide what he should eat. When I asked whom he had most enjoyed seeing this time in L
ondon, Alan said an old friend of his called Anna May Wong, one of his early romances. Alan hated Waiting for Godot; the tramp’s dirty feet worried him and he couldn’t see the point of the small boy, or angel, as we saw him. Maugham said he had enjoyed it because the second act had been up to standard and it was always the most difficult part of a play to do. Angus Wilson said he couldn’t like any play with tramps in it; he didn’t like the idea of people being wanderers who didn’t settle down in life. His play, The Mulberry Bush, on the other hand, was very good. Maugham advised him to go to rehearsals as often as he could. It was very important to get the feel of a play and it helped one to make improvements. Maugham praised the cœur de filet de bœuf, it was so delicious and tender. I always like seeing Alan Searle and Maugham. I find them restful, modest and well-mannered.

  *

  Not only does Cyril already have a genet (a kind of civet) costing £20 in the care of Mr Flewin at the zoo, but he has also persuaded the Sunday Times to buy him a lemur from Harrods in exchange for an article on them. The lemur has enchanting ways, purrs when stroked or petted, woofs when fretful, swings from branches, romps like a kitten, but the worst horror, it is a relentless destroyer of buds and leaves, and when trapped in the cat basket, springs up and down on its forepaws, in a caged, neurotic fashion, banging its head on the top of the basket. He has named her Wirra. She is the Sunday Times mascot, totally dependent on human beings and a source of non-stop worry.

  I am having book-jacket trouble for my novel. The painter, Eleanor Bellingham-Smith, was hopeless, she did a cover of herself at the age of twelve; Mozley is vulgar; so, in the end, Cyril rang up Leonard Rosoman.

  * John Raymond wrote a book on Simenon and was amongst other things, an editor of the New Statesman. John Minton, the artist, committed suicide in 1957.

  † Poppet John, who was then married to a Dutch painter, Pol, had rented her flat in Percy Street to John Russell.

  Chapter III

  In Hospital

  Peter Watson died last week. He was found dead in his bath. It is not known yet what was the cause. Cyril and Stephen Spender obituary-conscious. Cyril’s more moving but hopelessly cut in the ‘Atticus’ column:

  Mr Peter Watson, who died unexpectedly at the age of forty-nine, held a unique place in the world of modern art. As a young man he stepped, gay and delightful, out of a charmed existence like a Mayfair Buddha suddenly sobered by the tragedy of his time to become the most intelligent and generous and discreet of patrons, the most creative of connoisseurs, the possessor of a formative flair which sought out everything that was contemporary, international and alive in painting and music. He founded and financed the magazine Horizon, of which he was the art editor from 1939 to 1950, and became one of the four founders of the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

  At this stage of our marital stress, encouraged by Cyril who had always wanted me to have a child, I consulted a gynaecologist. It was not the first attempt. Previously I had been told that before being given treatment, I would have to undergo an operation for the removal of some fibroids, which I decided to do and a lady surgeon booked me into Canterbury Hospital.

  The day before going into hospital, Cyril greeted me at Charing Cross with the words, ‘Well, at any rate, I have some good news. Mary Campbell knows all about fibroids. When her cows get them they become so randy they’re good for nothing and have to be shot!’

  We spent the night before in Canterbury at the Abbot’s Barton Hotel. Our room had a large window looking on to grass bordered by a neatly trimmed beech hedge. Both with healthy appetites, we dined in the hotel on boiled ham. The following morning, we took a taxi to the hospital. Cyril sat next to the driver. I found his back view very touching, the uncombed hair round a bald patch on the pudding basin head, his coat collar crumpled inward and, when he turned towards me, his pale blue eyes had the pained expression of an injured child, not knowing what he had done to deserve such punishment. He stayed with me all day, merely disappearing for an hour in the afternoon to buy a cyclamen in a pot and six yellow roses, and got back to find I had already received a dozen red ones. Yes! He had wanted to be the first person to give me flowers, so I said, ‘They’re only from Chuff,’ adding that I preferred his yellow roses and the fact that there were only six make them more touching. He must have a kiss for them. He gives a deep sigh and says, ‘Ahhhh’, on a low note of pain. W. is talked about all the rest of the day: if I went to live with him, how he would always be unfaithful; how Jews get so unattractive in middle age. I am given a blood test; am shaved. The anaesthetist plops all over my breast. A nurse tests my breathing and in between Cyril goes on running down W. Describes Sutro and W. as bubble-blowing babies or pram dictators who expect everyone to gather round and watch them fart. Compares our situation to Carmen, only, instead of a matador, the lover is a Jewish businessman.

  The surgeon, a provincial drill-mistress in her early thirties, comes in for a final interview. She states the swelling is in a very difficult position and it might be necessary to remove the womb altogether.

  ‘Are you in agreement?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ I say. What one had thought was going to be a simple operation suddenly turns out to be a nightmare. ‘If I can’t have a child,’ I say to Cyril, ‘I shall feel utterly useless to everyone.’ C. just sits beside the bed and glares. As he was unable to cheer me up, I begged him to leave. ‘You make me feel worse sitting there glaring,’ I say.

  *

  Cyril has just been to see me; he brought Wirra with him. She is a changed animal, hibernating and affectionate, with hanging breasts. I compared her changed aspect to our old char, Mrs Munro, and said one couldn’t think of her as being pretty any more after seeing that rump. Advised him to sell her before she incurred even more expense to zookeepers to look after her, otherwise he would spend the rest of his life carrying that smelly little basket around. Cyril asked if I had made a will.

  ‘You must write on a slip of paper that you leave the cottage and everything to me, it’s the least you can do.’

  ‘What about my ice?’ (the Boucheron clip that Farouk had given me out of his winnings in La Baule casino).

  ‘I don’t care about that.’ As he had been seeing a lot of Elaine Dundy, authoress of The Dud Avocado, I said, ‘You could always give it to Elaine Tynan.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Or pin it on to Wirra’s rump.’

  ‘You’re in a good humour,’ Cyril said peevishly.

  *

  The ward sister has just been in and said, ‘We’ll be moving you after lunch, when you get back from theatre.’ Nurses very sweet and attentive. Begin to think it an ideal life, lying in bed with the sound of voices and a hoover in the distance. Am very tired after a succession of bad nights in London, quarrels and crises. Compare my feelings of a year ago with today, relatively content; imagine I could be separated from W., to lead my own life without much regret. Situation with Cyril remains bad. He is invariably in a bad humour, when his expression conveys permanent disgust, a cross between angry rodent and a beaver. Always this great insistence on knowing the truth. ‘I am an intellectual and must hear the truth.’ And then, when he gets it, he collapses. When I said to him, ‘To think how wretched I was a year ago and now am relatively content. I could never be as much in love again,’ he said, ‘You mean to say you were in love with him?’

  ‘What do you think all the fuss was about, then?’

  *

  Cyril has just telephoned. Very doux for a change. When I told him that this was the life for me – lying in bed with the sound of food trays being prepared along the passage, newspapers brought in in the morning, solicitous people who come in, quiet reading, an occasional guest, early nights, and a pleasant view of trees and grass from the window – Cyril said, ‘We must see about getting you into a psychiatric ward next time!’

  Cables pour in, sometimes three a day. Greetings telegrams with cupids blowing trumpets, horseshoes, roses and blue violins, wishing me
luck and sending infinite love, asking me to telephone, and ending up with affection and more love, George. Then came a telegram with felicitations on the operation being successful, he was hurrying up the proofs of my book, I was to resist being influenced by any distorted tittle-tattle, he was longing for the weekend, he would telephone, in the meantime he awaited a letter and hoped it would be friendly. Then, later in the day, another message came saying I was to believe in our happiness together in spite of everything … he had telephoned three times and how frustrated he felt because I had not gone to the telephone or sent back any messages, but he was coming to the hospital on Saturday and Sunday, I was to tell the nurse what I wanted him to bring and recommend a hotel in Canterbury, he was thinking of me incessantly and desperately, lovingly, George. So I wrote:

  Nurse very amused that you expected me to get to the telephone this morning. I am immovable even in bed and was drugged. Had nine little fibroids removed and one big one blocking the tubes. The flowers have been much admired by each nurse in turn. I gave sister some as there were so many; she was very pleased. Will get her to book a room for you in town and expect to see you two-thirty Saturday. That’s the visiting hour. Hope you are not fretting but keeping your mind on business. The roses have been much admired again. ‘You are very spoilt,’ one of the nurses said. Very sleepy, love …

  *

  The following day he said he was constantly dreaming of a Roman December and Sicily for Christmas, and incessantly thinking of and awaiting Saturday. He had caught himself doodling with breadcrumbs throughout an entire French Embassy dinner, forming the first five letters of my name; he felt wildly frustrated and was impatiently awaiting our reunion, he would be arriving in Canterbury early morning, he would telephone …