'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

by Barbara Skelton

  A cable arrived saying: ‘Darling Barbara if you must go please leave evidence with Robin … But entreat you to think again … Do grow up and understand about love if you hurt me you will hurt yourself and be unhappy for the rest of your life … Merry Christmas Wopsie …’

  Then I announced my departure for Madrid and Bill took me to the airport. But when I said goodbye and went to embrace him, he shied away. They had taken me under their wing to please Cyril and my departure was considered to be an act of total betrayal. The Davises never forgave me and I was never allowed into La Consula again. When I got to the Hotel Fenix, W. had not arrived due to a plane strike.

  But I ran into an old suitor from Queen Street days. Kemali was staying in the hotel with his plump Spanish girlfriend. W. turned up next day and we spent a harmonious Christmas with occasional bouts of gloom on his part. ‘What a miserable, ill-fated pair!’ ‘What are we going to do now?’ ‘I feel restless and want to benefit from my freedom!’ ‘I think I need a month to think everything over …’ ‘Suppose I should want another woman! How will you take it?’ A harassed expression and cuticle-biting. Then he flew back to England leaving me to pace, groan and brood over his final speech: ‘So much has been said or not said that words have become a distrusted currency between us. I don’t blame you for feeling deeply disillusioned in me today, for I greatly share your feelings and, more strongly, I feel terrible distress at this convulsive, contortion-like sense of uncertainty I have displayed here. I only want to say this. I love you more than I ever loved anyone else or shall, I think, love anybody. I want you as a person, as a woman, as a wonderful human being and as a wife but I must have a few days of mental peace. Madrid has been both soothing and distressing, very happy and dreadfully sad. I came here in a confused state of mind about our future, partly inflicted by my “conflict”, partly persecuted by London propaganda. Please darling,’ he said, ‘consider that two days ago you yourself suggested a seven-week break followed by a reunion to give me a “taste of freedom”;’ but he insisted, ‘I do not now want this “taste” – I merely want a breathing space to regain sanity and then for you to join me. I shall prepare the house and the ground for you – symbolically; you will come and be welcomed and received. Yes, darling, I do mean passionately every word I say. It is not a breathing space to “think things over” but just to find myself and be ready to receive you forever! Please do nothing precipitate or impulsive in the next few days. Just answer my telegrams and be available for calls and let me know constantly where you are. Please understand and recover your faith in me.’ And off he flew.

  Momentary relief while lunching with Kemali and his girlfriend. They talked of a trip to Palma. But optimism soon dissipated. What do I want with these people?! They cannot relieve the depression. It’s preferable to be alone.

  At seven o’clock – it must have been the time of W.’s arrival in London – came a feeling of complete calm; the storm of misery abated. The crisis was over. I enjoyed my evening with Kemali and thought no more of W.

  Sure enough, the following morning I was handed a ‘Cable of the Universe’, a large, blue globe surrounded by holly and mistletoe. For wasn’t it Christmas still? ‘URGENT SENORA CONNOLLY Hotel Fenix Madrid’. The cable had been sent from London Airport and he seemed to have had a stormy flight, to be miserable and self-hating; he wanted me to join him on Saturday; on my arrival I would find ‘red roses red carpet a breakfast tray Sunday and real honest love’. He seemed distressed because I had refused to accept any telephone calls; I was not to think he was crying wolf when he claimed that his call had been urgent as he was ill. He hoped I had slept well and please would I take his call at nine in the evening?

  Later that day, another urgent Cable of the Universe. He had been talking to his mother, had told her everything about us; she had been furious at his veering and hoped as he did that I would fly to London on Saturday.

  The third cable marked ‘URGENT’ conveyed how desperate he was as I refused to accept any calls. I was to forgive him for having a call put through to Kemali’s room so late at night, but he had instructed them to try both rooms thinking I might be having a drink with him. He had had a very bad night with injections and he begged me to wire that I would join him on Saturday, and hoped I would accept a call a little later in the day. I wired to say ‘Think carefully not hysterically avoiding later regrets missed opportunities me thinking too love Barbara.’

  The following day two cables arrived, both apologising for besieging me but he felt physically wretched and collapsed and the doctor had been. I was not to interpret that as pressure on his part but a token of sadness, and would I please accept a morning call and return to London in any mood and on any terms?

  Nuit urgente, he had thought carefully and not hysterically. He could not live without me; his only regret would be to lose me forever. He wanted me to marry him and return as begged before in time for the New Year. He had checked with BEA and there was a hundred percent chance of a seat tomorrow. I was to believe that this was his final decision and we were going to start a New Year life together which would give me great scope for artistic and satisfying work by helping him reading and planning books and giving him courage and he remained my ever devoted George.

  *

  I flew back to England and settled into Chester Square. Two weeks later I was living alone at the cottage preparing my departure for Morocco and cabling was resumed.

  Would I please telephone him before collecting my ticket? He simply had to see me. I had left him feeling quite wretched. And contrary to what I might think, there was still a lot to be said. I was to telephone at once and return to Chester Square.

  While at the cottage, I lit a fire one evening, in the sitting room and, cleaning out two built-in cupboards filled with years of junk, one either side of the fireplace, came upon a brown paper bag filled with live cartridges that had been left behind by PC Boot. I don’t need these, I thought, flinging them into the flames. Whereupon they exploded and shot all over the room like fireworks, grazing the bridge of my nose and narrowly missing an eye.

  When W. managed to get me on the telephone he said, ‘I left the Ritz last night feeling more wretched and more contrite than, I think, I shall ever feel. The last fortnight is still vivid in my mind. It is essential that I put to you one or two things quite clearly because whatever you decide to do please take note that so much has been said, groaned over and hinted between us at Chester Square these last few days that it would be unfair to take isolated snatches of conversation and disregard the others. I do not want you to go back to Cyril and I am not afraid of the divorce scandal. I signed my papers as “Co-Respondent” today and whatever happens will happen! I love you and want you. I was caught up in an indissoluble tangle of feelings, conflicts, fears and feverish frets, and lost my balance. But the outstanding fact is that I love you and do not want to be with anyone else. In modest self-defence I should like to say that you, too, did not help me in that fortnight, for while you entered the spirit of tragedy completely you did not respond to the intermittent moods of constructiveness. But please believe me that I quite understand all you had to face! In Madrid you said – spontaneously – that a spell of “living on our own” would be good for both of us. If I tell you now that I repent last Thursday and Friday’s behaviour and beg you to come back, you may not believe me and, indeed, be more incensed than ever. But I do and I feel it. But so that I am given my full share of punishment let me wait a bit but please do not commit yourself to a return to C.! I believe that you have emotionally emancipated yourself from him forever. I also believe that much of the bitter experience is due to the pattern of his behaviour and the publicity he gave to every one of his and our moves. I was horrified to hear that you thought I was sending other people as emissaries to you or Cyril with the object of fostering your resumption or to save me from a divorce scandal. Please, darling, when you are in Morocco, rest and recover, and please do not judge too harshly what happened and if you feel so
inclined come back to me. By then I should be free and, at any rate, the anomalous and tangled situation of two “unfree” people living together will be reduced to saner proportions.

  ‘I wish to confirm to you that I want you to help me with editorial work. As I explained to you yesterday, it would entail part-time work but should mean your being available for consultation once a week. Depending on the way it develops, I think this work would entail reading of manuscripts or books (almost exclusively English but also some French books), cutting, rewriting and also some pictorial research. Later in the year it may also mean writing of blurbs. For this work you would be paid £70 per month and it would start, if you so wish, on February 1. When you return we shall have to go into the whole question of tax! Your novel will definitely come out in early June or perhaps even late May. The proofs should be with you long before you return.

  ‘I want you to know definitely that if you decide not to return to Cyril you can depend on me to any degree you like. If you can forgive me and curb the grievances and resentments arising out of the post-Westbury phase, please give me another chance. Whatever you may have felt or still feel, believe me, I am just as wretched and perhaps even more wretched than you are, and can only plead weakness and character deficiency. If you have some love left and a little charity you may perhaps give me another last opportunity. But before you leave please let me see you for a little while. I promise you no scenes or hysteria. For one thing, I must explain something about the manuscripts.’

  Later, he called to say, ‘I have neither the power nor power of persuasion to make you desist from mistrusting me or from deviating from your plan to depart. But I must see you, even if it’s only for a little while. I want you back with all the commitments for a saner and happier life. I want to marry you. You could help me to conquer my instability and momentary panics. The nervous crisis and pitched passion I faced manifested itself in a manner both frightening and ignoble. But please remember you have me at your disposal. I want your divorce to go through,’ he insisted. ‘I do not want to shirk being cited. If you are free you can decide if you want to live with me and marry me or live alone. If you decide the former I shall be there. If the latter, I shall be at your side to help you with all I have. But, please come and spend an evening with me before you leave without discussion.’

  But I remained adamant.

  Chapter V

  Morocco

  Cyril met me in Tangier. We drove to the Hotel Allard where we found a note from Paul Bowles saying he would be delighted to see us both at seven, and that his chauffeur, Temsamani, would call and pick us up. Temsamani arrived with the painter, Ahmed Yacoubi, and we were driven to a modern apartment block in the residential quarter. Cyril kept saying I resembled an ‘oiled gull’ and seemed to be completely destroyed.

  We continued to see a lot of Paul and his wife, Jane, who lived with Cherifa, a married Arab woman wooed and winkled with difficulty from her husband, in the Casbah, where Daphne and Xan Fielding occupied a house with tortoises crawling about the matting. Jane Bowles was a very witty lady. She had published two original, short masterpieces of wit and style. A novel, Two Serious Ladies, written when she was twenty-one years old, had been described by Tennessee Williams as a classic. A collection of short stories, Plain Pleasures, was also well received. Then, to everyone’s regret she published nothing further; this may have been due to her drinking. It was not for lack of trying, as I remember her saying she intended to incarcerate herself alone in the Casbah in order to get on with some project she then had in mind. Ali Forbes was also in Tangier living in requited love with a very beautiful Moorish girl. When Cyril returned to the Davises in Spain, I spent some nights with her in their flat, Ali having gone off to Cairo to see Nasser. Before going to bed she would carefully place the customary bowl of fresh milk on each window ledge to ward off any lurking evil spirits.

  I was very attracted to Paul Bowles. He had natural elegance and charm, spare, perfect features and beautiful tarantula fingers. He grew his own pot, always fresh and potent, so that I would leave his apartment reeling, having lost all sense of time or purpose. I admired his writing, particularly The Sheltering Sky, and as his conversation was very brilliant, when alone with him I barely uttered. Even so, later on, when he came to London, we met again and on one of his visits to the United States he came to my New York apartment.

  Diary

  Hôtel Villa de France: Winter in Morocco

  Wake up feeling sticky and sluggish. Look out of the window. The whole of the town enveloped in grey; it’s drizzling. Reach out of bed and pick up a receiver to ask, ‘What time is it?’ and order a café complet. Continue looking out of the window at a palm, a minaret and beyond the minaret, the blue, white and chrome-yellow rooftops. Think about nothing except what I shall do that day. Without deciding, I continue to lie there and become more despairing.

  Then the telephone rings and a voice says, ‘How are you? What are your plans today?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you’re alright,’ says the solicitous voice of Peter Mayne, author of an amusing autobiography, The Alleys of Marrakesh. ‘I’ll telephone again tomorrow and we might meet sometime.’ Why not today? I think, but, ‘Alright,’ I reply. By midday, my gloom having reached a suicidal pitch, I force myself out of bed, and after carefully buttering one roll and jamming the other, I wrap them in a napkin and hide them away in a drawer. An act of thrift in the event of future hunger. In the hall I whine to the girl at the reception about having to pay demi-pension.

  ‘Now, it is lunchtime,’ I say, ‘and behold I’m not at all hungry. This evening I’m asked out. You see, I have many friends here.’ After ten minutes’ haggle, she agrees to take off fifty pesetas each day. Pleased with the transaction, I step out of the porch into torrential rain and decide that, after all, I am ravenous. Go into a smelly Italian café and am given a plate of greasy pork which I eat without pleasure and am handed a bill of 100 pesetas.

  Go to the post and ask, ‘Is there any mail?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says the man.

  Look into Dean’s Bar, it is empty. Dean is seated in a corner reading Rupert Brooke. Make my way in the rain, a scarf over my head, to the Hotel Allard.

  ‘Any mail?’ I say. The man hands me a telegram from Cyril which reads: Marbella full but he could get me a room in the Santa Clara for a week.

  When the sympathetic lady who runs the Allard hears I’m there, she

  rings down and says, ‘Your husband telephoned yesterday to know how you were. He told me to tell you that he loved you.’

  ‘In that case, why isn’t he here?’

  ‘Les hommes sont comme ça,’ and she smiles.

  Hell. I think, since I’m banned from La Consula, I will certainly not go to Torremolinos. And how monstrous it was of Cyril to have left me on Saturday, after I’d taken so many sodium amytals.

  ‘Do you want a doctor?’ he had asked angrily, consulting his wrist, momentarily forgetting that he no longer possessed a watch. ‘I shall miss the boat. If you want a doctor, say so.’

  ‘I just want to sleep,’ I murmured, and turned over as he rushed out slamming the door. I went on sleeping until the following day with occasional visits from the manageress who took up the query of calling a doctor. By Sunday, she was cross.

  ‘You must eat,’ she insisted, and handed me an omelette. Very hungry, I ate it and in five minutes fell asleep again.

  The following morning, feeling better, I staggered up and packed. It was so cold in the Allard and I had decided to move to a warmer hotel.

  ‘You’re not moving somewhere else?’ she asked kindly. In order not to offend her, I said.

  ‘To stay with friends. It’s lonely here on my own.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said.

  *

  Yesterday, I lunched with Jamie Caffery and David Herbert, whose Spanish-style house is crammed with parrots, a pug dog, creamy Abyssinian cats, and Victorian and Regenc
y furniture brought over from Wiltshire. David is the Queen of Tangier and how very delightful he is. That evening, I was dining alone in the same restaurant when I overheard a conversation between two English people. One, a rather distinguished old lady, said, ‘Did you see David Herbert come in this morning?’ Her companion, a priggish young man with a small ginger moustache, nodded. In a horrified tone, the old lady said, ‘Did you notice the way he was dressed? An open-necked shirt and no tie.’ She shook her head and added, sadly, ‘To think of all the charming people he used to know in Wiltshire.’

  Agadir

  The wind has abated but the sky is grey with scant patches of blue. The beach curves round to a point and the sands run up into a wood of eucalyptus trees, while the sea creeps gently to shore in smooth, overlapping rollers. Landing at the airport was a great disappointment. It was cold and windy, all the passengers from the plane dispersed and I was the only one to board a bus. The driver said the Mahraba was closed and dropped me off at the Saada, a large honeycomb building, mostly empty.* The wind howled all night and morning. Sent a telegram to Cyril, but the depression saps one’s energy, nothing seems worth doing, one’s body becomes a load. I tried to read Paul Bowles’ new book, The Spider’s House.

  *

  Have a small supply of kif in my basket that Paul’s American friend gave me, not to be taken all at once, he warned, or I might ‘blow my top’. I am not sure I like its effect as much as I used to; it accentuates the mood one is in, therefore, in a state of gloom one becomes suicidal, the fantasies are frightening, one becomes uninhibited and one’s mind follows a free-association pattern. The most impossible facts become a conviction.