As I sat sulkily at the head of the master’s table, W. would approach the buffet and whisper over my shoulder, ‘Gush! Gush! You simply must be more gushing.’
Guests like the Rt. Hon. Lord Hore-Belisha, though, maintained they had had a good and pleasant dinner with interesting talk, the Lord adding that he thought the house a palazzo!
W. approved of my lunching with the authoress, Jane Howard.
‘That’s good. We would like to have her as a reader one day.’ He was also pleased when I went to see Tilly Losch.
Cyril then became the insistent telephoner and sometimes, when I went out to shop, I would find him awaiting me in a taxi in the square. If I appeared reluctant to meet, he accused me of being utterly callous. Wasn’t it my fault that he no longer had a home or a wife? He would look at me with baleful, hunted, animalish eyes, while his nose wrinkled with contempt as he spoke of the three untalented females, Janetta, Sonia and Joan, as the professional mourners at a funeral, riddled with envy and revelling in disaster. He seemed so unhappy that it increased my feelings of guilt, and in an effort to cheer him up, I would take little home-cooked dishes round to his room in Chester Place.
Three months after the marriage W. left for New York. The first cable informed me that he and Feliks Topolski had arrived safely. On his arrival there had been millions of messages. He had lunched with his agents. Afterwards, regular bulletins arrived from the Hotel Gladstone giving details of what he had been doing.
‘Just digested a yoghurt and cream cheese sandwich.’ ‘Just read the Herald Tribune.’ ‘Am about to drag myself exhausted into bed.’
I was kept informed of everyone he was seeing: Phillip Rahv of The Partisan Review, Charles Rolo and Cass Canfield of Harper’s Bazaar, Jean Campbell, Beaverbrook’s grand-daughter (who later married Norman Mailer), Philippe Jullian and Carmel Snow; of all the luncheons, cocktails, dinners and parties that were being given for him. He had dined with William Faulkner and Jean Stein, had had drinks with Cecil Beaton, been taken to an enjoyable party given by Leo Lerman, editor of Mademoiselle, who had invited all the leading actresses and singers, including Maria Callas, then at the Met. He had dined with Israel’s envoy to the UN and other Israelis. The Sylvester Gates were there. The Milsteins were taking him to the opera. Tilly Losch was taking him and an ancient New England banker to an O’Neill play. He had made good friends with a Californian senator, oilman and ex-deputy Secretary of State who had invited us both firmly to stay at Pasadena during the summer or autumn. (And how!) Feliks was having a succès fou. During Thanksgiving, W. hoped to be able to relax from the terrifying routine, stay in and read a vast number of manuscripts. I was the loveliest of wives. He was already missing me, but he was sure I would have hated the life of telephoning and restless rushing around. Everyone knew the full story of our courtship and considered the ‘saga’ to be very romantic. He hoped to be able to borrow some money to buy me some clothes, including a skirt and top for evening wear. It was too early to say how successful the trip had been. But, already he was on to the track of two or three good books, with unrequited love …
By then, I suppose, I had become peevish at being excluded from this whirl of activity and he wrote complaining of my silence. He had written four letters and I only one. I was wrong to attribute volatility and superficiality to be his most outstanding attributes. He considered he had had a wonderfully successful business tour, far above his expenditure, but it would make the firm considerably stronger and sounder. What news of home, the pusscat and why did I gloss over all my activities? He was due back in a week. Would I write giving some news? I was not to make him feel fretful and unhappy. He arrived back on Pan-Am on December 11.
*
A lot of blame shifting. He had never wanted to marry me. I am responsible for everything going wrong. Rings up from office at twelve o’clock to say he is bringing someone back for luncheon.
I say, ‘There is only an omelette and some cheese. Is it enough?’
‘Oh yes, a very light luncheon will do.’
But in the middle of lunch he rushes up to me and complains about having to send Enzo out for some meat. Wishes to find fault as much as possible in order to build up a good case against me. Has described it to Sonia as a modern marriage – i.e. experimental. Compares himself to Napoleon and me to Josephine, who was paid off and remained a mistress while Napoleon made a second dynastic marriage. Says half of him wants it to last and the other half not. Main topic always: money. His great fear: sinking into a life of middle-class impoverishment. At the Tate Cyril ran into Olga Davenport who said,
‘I heard you had married again!’
‘How do you mean, “Again”? Aren’t you confusing me with Barbara?’
‘Oh, we all know about that,’ she sneers.
‘How can I marry again,’ says C., ‘when I’m still married to B.? I’m a Christian, you see.’
*
I have a terrible cold. Muzzy head. Dazed. Lack of energy, no appetite.
‘Must I go on sleeping with the cat on the bed?’ says W.
‘Where else should she sleep?’
‘Everyone is horrified at my having to sleep with a cat.’
‘Who is everyone?’
‘Lizzy.’
‘Well, since I have to put up with Lizzy, why can’t you put up with the cat?’
Wakes up saying he had to go to bed so early; he hasn’t been able to sleep all night. I say, Is it my fault that I don’t feel well and went to bed early? He says, Well then, he should have been able to go out and see his father. I say, But surely, this is the time to stay in, if your wife is not well?
On Sunday, he is out to dinner. On Monday, he has a male dinner party. I might as well make a date every evening on my own.
‘We have been asked to dinner by Lady Norton,’ he says.
‘I will not be well enough to go …’
‘You want to ruin me. Destroy me. Everyone warned me!’
‘Why did you break up my marriage then…?’
‘Everyone said you were unhappy …’
‘I was not unhappy …’
‘Then why didn’t you stay with your husband…?’
‘Because I was in love with you.’
Enzo comes to say the cat has made a mess on the chair cover. At this, both master and servant – Leporello – exchange suffering looks. W. blows up and throws my box of kleenex on to the floor. I am made to inspect the mess in the drawing room. Clearly the cat was shut in and could not get out during the night, peed in the grate, clambered over the coal and from there strolled round the room over the chair cover. She is in disgrace.
‘You have got us both into trouble,’ I say to her.
W. returns from the office around six o’clock. He bursts into the bedroom, sees me lying on the bed and glares. I glare back.
‘Must you lie in bed all day? It gives the servants such a bad impression.’ He poses his face into a smile, while his eyes remained deadpan. ‘What’s new?’
‘Nothing special.’
‘Anyone telephone?’
He collapses on to the chair with his legs outstretched, starts rubbing the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other and smoothing his forehead. This goes on in silence for some time.
‘Has so-and-so telephoned? Will I be a success, do you think? I wish I could get Clore to do something; just lending his name would be enough.’
Christmas
Cries of ‘Get out! Get out!’ to the pusscat. W. playing the radio and doing his accounts. Talk at lunch. Money. Income tax to pay. Having to support his parents in 1959. I say, ‘Why look so far ahead? Anything might have happened by then.’ He says I give him a feeling of isolation. He cannot talk to me about his business. I say, ‘But you always told me you could never talk about anything with Jane …’
‘She would always talk about business,’ he says. Says he has telephoned Sonia and Janetta to wish them a Happy Christmas. He then asks me if I wouldn’t like to live in Mexico. It is ver
y cheap living there. We both decided the marriage cannot possibly improve. We spend the morning in separate bedrooms. I then get up and make a delicious luncheon. A Boulestin recipe, chicken sauté with capers, some very good buttery mashed potato and excellent salad of lambs’ tails. Discuss whether I would go back to Cyril. W. says, ‘You may be sure he wouldn’t want to remarry. He might like to live with you if you were provided with some money, but would pursue his own life, dining out with other people.’ Think of my lunch with Cyril yesterday; told him W. and I had discussed a separation plan by which I left him – and we divorced on desertion! Cyril’s role now that of an advisor.
‘You could try and make your marriage better by having a child,’ he said.
Since he has adopted this giving-advice line of how I could improve the marriage, I said, ‘The best way of improving it, actually, is for you to leave the country, as you are the biggest wedge between us so far.’
*
Now we never sleep in the same bed. I have moved into the passage room across the landing. Very noisy in the early morning. I am sometimes invited into the treble-size couch. Then the telephone rings, and W. says,
‘Is the Blow marriage on or off? Is she playing him up, do you think? Okay, all the best, goodbye.’
Then turning to me: ‘I’ve come to the conclusion you’re mad …’
‘Why?’
‘Because you can’t admit being in the wrong.’
‘But that’s not mad.’
‘Yes it is, it’s psychopathic.’
Spends all his mornings throughout Christmas lying in bed palm-rubbing against a moist forehead, racking his brain for someone to telephone, while I out of boredom note down the conversations.
‘George here. Okay, old boy. God bless you. To cut a long story short … a firm turnover of £50,000, it also produces prints for office diaries … an enormous future … all books are declining … well, I asked him the price … purchase profit … cheaper … instalment system … solicitors, don’t you agree? … negotiate valuation of stock … we must be ruthless … utmost skill in negotiation, I personally think [silence] Ya! Ya! We’ve got to think… negotiate … this is the point … got those figures … maybe Clore … shareholders … investment between half a million to three quarters … expand business side … see what I mean? … sell … raise money … slash the brains … sales manager … promotion … excellent.’
*
Have been in the house all day; exhausted after going to the Milton Shulman party. Found one person I could talk to about Spain, the Brenans, Davises, Almuñecar. Sonia arrives, makes an ostentatious cut, looks sallow, puffy and shiny, wearing an odd shirt, with a full red skirt and squat blocks protruding from her hem, coloured glass costume jewels, dangling chunky earrings; a mop of blonde straggles, gets shinier and more vociferous as the evening goes on. First person I spot on entering is Kenneth Tynan. Think: Ah! Someone I can talk to. He is sitting on a sofa surrounded by people, all conversing together; he remains slightly apart, silent, and stares rather critically round the room. I wend my way towards him; seeing me he immediately becomes engrossed in animated conversation with Eric Ambler and talking for all he is worth. I halt my pace and turn to face three men grouped together en route to the sofa. One of them gets me a whisky. I talk about being cooped up over Christmas, say that this is the first time I have been out and I feel like an invalid with sealegs; no one reacts: I say what a state our house is in, the servants having been on strike. They stare back as though I am being uppish and boasting – a spoilt woman’s prattle. Am cut short by one of them pointing to a Lowry painting. In the meantime, Tynan has risen, is obliged to pass by me, says ‘Hello’, and then bolts across the crowded room and is next seen, looking panicky, with his coat over one arm. I look round for Mrs T., but I fail to identify her, as always, in spite of her resembling a Boucher girl, accordingly to Cyril. Good humour dispelled and spirits flag. Am shepherded by the hostess to the buffet.
‘I’ve not been out of the house for three days.’
‘I know what that means,’ she brightly replies, laughing.
‘Nothing but rows.’
‘Exactly.’
Everyone gets seated. W. somehow finds himself sitting next to me and becomes sulky. The woman on his left is Austrian.
‘Who is that next to you?’ she asks.
‘My wife.’ She looked amazed. ‘Why? Don’t you like her?’ he asks, half-hopefully.
‘Very interesting … but not malleable. It won’t last. I am a gipsy,’ she says finally. W. cheers up on hearing this. When we get home, the usual talk: his business, the only solution is to marry an heiress. He says he cannot go on living in an atmosphere of boycott and blames me. I am determined not to see Cyril but find myself weakening when he telephones. Hopeless.
*
W. comes back this evening with a croaky voice, says he does not feel at all well. At once collapses on the bed. Many telephone calls with the family. Hear his mother say, ‘Have you got the fire in your room?’ – a dig at me; I knew that would be one of the complaints, that I am hogging the electric fire. He orders some coffee, sausage and cod’s roe on toast.
‘You cannot be so bad if you are hungry,’ I say.
Mother rings again; father is coming round with a doctor. They come, doctor stays a second, pronounces him okay. Father remains by the bed for two hours. There is complete silence in their room. I wonder what they can be doing. Enzo is summoned several times. I feel a complete outcast, a lodger in this domain. The servants are leaving in a week. The mother is commissioned to find a replacement. I am not even given any housekeeping money. Says he wants to fall in love again.
‘If you want to, then you will,’ I say. He does not love me to the same extent, has not done since October. It is a terrible situation.
‘What have I got myself into?’ he sighs.
‘Cut your losses,’ I tell him. ‘Now, while the going is good and get out as soon as you can.’ His face brightens.
‘Do you really mean it?’ and he is happy for a fraction of time.
*
Much talk of separation. Talks of my deserting and agrees to settle for £500. I say I will not consider desertion; I cannot live on £500 a year. My mind soggy and blank from not putting it to any use. Just brushed the cat. Cyril talks of going to the Canaries. Long, long empty days. Servant trouble. They are leaving tomorrow.
‘And what do you do for me?’ W. asks.
I am quite split in two. If I get out of touch with Cyril, even for a week, I become miserable. Cyril admits that he didn’t envisage this situation, thought that either I would have returned to him by now or that he would have found someone else, or have become swept into a more amusing social life. The amusing party life, he thinks, revolves round the Tynans. Says he is now tired of seeing his friends. He has considered marrying various people, including Janetta, who is anxious to marry, but just imagine the wedding party, with all the ‘old hats’ – Mark Culme-Seymour, ex-lovers, Ralph and Frances Partridge and the Campbells. Clearly, what he really needs is someone young and entirely new.
*
W. in a dismal voice to his father:
‘God knows what sort of a year it’s going to be.’ A long pause and no reply. Five minutes later, ‘I start this year with great financial worries.’ They both look at me – the cause of it all.
‘Mustn’t give up hope,’ says father, ‘do the best you can.’
*
Completely listless and apathetic. Living on sleeping pills.
‘We must have a serious talk this evening,’ he says and dashes off to the office.
In the evening bursts into my room, drops his attaché case to the floor and says, ‘Who’s telephoned today?’ His bed very soon strewn with publicity magazines; he flicks rapidly through the pages, then picks up the telephone. ‘To cut a long story short …’
*
Next morning he says, ‘We must have a serious talk this evening,’ and dashes off to the office.
In the evening he returns looking most displeased, remains silent and twitchy about the nose, bites his cuticles, picks his nose and farts. I light the coal fire, hang up a picture and try to make the sitting room habitable. Long, strained silences. Occasionally he looks up to say, ‘Do you think we are mad?’
‘You may be. I know I’m not.’
‘What are we going to do? The next time it must be a total separation.’
One hour later, seated before the fire, he groans and mutters, ‘Domesticity.’
Half an hour later: ‘What a pity we can’t have the ideal situation. You, married to an amenable husband in the country, coming to London twice or three times a week.’
In the morning, he says, ‘Tonight, we really will discuss things.’ Closes his bedroom door softly. Telephones Bedbug.† I pick up the extension. Says the reason he missed her drinks party last night was because he was ill. She sounds a little peeved. He begs to see her some time over the weekend. She cannot. She eventually agrees to see him that evening at seven. I then overhear him arrange to meet a Pole straightaway en route to the office.
On his way out, he comes into my room and says, ‘Tonight at seven I’m having a drink with Baroness Budberg to meet a Pole.’
‘Now why do you lie?’ I say. ‘I know the Pole won’t be there.’
He repeats the story of how he should have gone to see her yesterday to see the Pole, but that she has now rearranged the meeting. I repeat, ‘Now why do you lie? I know the Pole won’t be there.’ And so we go on, but he persists, so that although I had actually heard to the contrary – having listened in to the conversation on the extension – I begin to doubt whether in fact I had heard right.
*
No servants. W.’s spirits low. No one ever rings up now. Terrible scenes about money.
‘And what about the cigarettes? There are no cigarettes in the house.’
'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More' Page 31