The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 106
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
December 15, 1962
Dear Gilbert & Marion,
Well, I am here safely in Yeats’ place at last, surrounded by acres of floors which I shall slowly & I am afraid lazily start to paint. Our moving in was a comedy of errors---I arrived to find no gas stove, no electricity connected up & as I ran out to see the gas people leaving the keys in the open flat, the door blew shut. Luckily the gas boys were experts at jimmying windows & we moved in by candlelight: Very Dickensian.
I hope by now Bennett* has come round for the key to let out the water in the cistern & the pipes (and brought the key back!) so I’ll have no worry of water freezing or pipes bursting.
Do get the potato sack out of the hall closet, use all the onions & the apples. I took the babies to the Zoo the other day, it’s right across the street, & Frieda was thrilled by the owls & lions & a new baby elephant. Nick just slept. I hope the enclosed cheque* will see Skunky-Bunks & Tiger-Pieker through some Topcat & Christmas milk & that they are not too much trouble. If one or both are female, Gilbert, could you have her or the Shee fixed by the vet? Let me know & I’ll pay the bill, so I won’t return to thousands of kits.
Happy Christmas to you all, & many thanks for everything!
Sylvia
TO Mary Coyne
Saturday 15 December 1962
TLS, University of Tulsa
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
December 15, 1962
Dear Mrs. Coyne,
I have had to move to London for the winter to have my little boy’s eye seen to by a specialist & operated on, so I would be very grateful if you would send on my sweater & the little girl’s sweater suit to me at the above London address, if you have not already sent them to Court Green. If you have already sent them there, they will be forwarded to me.
Do tell Mr. Murphy I am living in Yeats’ house in London---with the blue plaque and all. It will amuse him, as Yeats’ was a famous Irish poet & I am very lucky to be living in his house, it is a real inspiration to my writing.
Best wishes for the Christmas season,
Sincerely,
Sylvia Hughes
TO Olive Higgins Prouty
Saturday 15 December 1962
TLS, Indiana University
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
December 15, 1962
Dear Mrs. Prouty,
The miracle has happened. I am writing from Yeats’ house in Fitzroy Road & I don’t think I have ever been so happy in my life. Even the young solicitor of my firm who got the lease through so I could move in Monday says it is a miracle of will power & persistence. All during that thick smog which stuffed every crack of London with white cotton wool I was up here, pushing through the 5-year lease, arranging about gas & electricity & a thousand other things. Moving in was a comedy of errors---I arrived with the babies & my nurse to find no electricity connected, no gas stove, & as I rushed out to see the stove people I left the keys in the open flat & the door blew shut! Well the gas stove boys forced a window & loaned me a candle & my nice Devon mover did all the moving in by candlelight, so it was very Dickensian. After that, everything went swimmingly. My nurse stayed just a day before going on holiday so I could make numberless safaris to town ordering what was needed. Now I am alone with the babies until I get floors painted & the room fixed up so I can lure in a mother’s help. I just sit beaming, looking at my bare boards, I am so happy. The children are happy, too. They are singing in their little cots like birds, & laughing.
The windows are low enough for them to see out, & even Nick is fascinated by the goings on in the street---the dogs, cats & passing pony carts. It is heaven for me to be among people. To be anonymous, in myself. Last night I wrote out the script of a long broadcast of my new poems for a BBC producer who is very interested in them, & I also have a commission to do a program called “Landscape on Childhood”, about how my childhood environment influenced me. The Norway radio wants to translate the program of mine about 3 women in a maternity ward & the critic A. Alvarez, the best here, says he thinks my second book of poems which I have just finished should win a Pulitzer prize! Of course it won’t, but it’s nice he thinks so. As soon as I get my mother’s help, which I hope will be early in the new year, I shall finish my second novel. I shall rent the flat out furnished in summer to, I hope, Americans, & make back much of what I have invested in it. I spent a Sunday stringing my onions & brought them up with a load of my Court Green potatoes, apples, honey & beautiful holly. I am very proud of my garden produce & hope to keep it going summers. Having to close up that big house & open this flat has given me an immense pleasure in businesslike dealings, I feel to have grown up a great deal in the process.
I enclose my review of LORD BYRON’S WIFE, which appeared in the New Statesman* & which I thought would amuse you---so much is relevant, even Ted’s attachment to his sister who never wanted him to marry & who is, alas, nowhere near as nice as Augusta! It is a big book here & I was lucky to get to review it, it was one of the lead reviews. Do pass it on to mother when you see her!
Now to answer your last good letter* & the questions about Ted. I was appalled to hear from my solicitor about what the courts allow a woman here. One-third of her husband’s income at most, less if she keeps the house, and if she works it is one-third of their combined incomes, so if I earn 1,000 $ & Ted earns 2 thousand, he need pay nothing! I am penalized for earning. Also, as he is a writer & his income is only what he makes it & he can conceal much of it, from odd sources which do not report income, I am ‘lucky’ to have him agree to a thousand pounds a year, which is I think much more than a court would allow. Whatever his income, I need a constant & regular sum, for my bills are constant. Now he is well-off he wants to keep it all to himself & has actually told me to buy my clothes in the British equivalent of Filene’s basement, while his married girlfriend spends on herself alone twice what he allows me for myself & the children a week. Well, I have my lovely Jaeger clothes & I feel like a new woman in them. As soon as I get my mother’s help & the flat fixed, I shall have lots of jobs. This woman, who is still dangling her 3rd husband, has brutalized Ted beyond belief---taught him it is “clever” & “sophisticated” to lie & deceive people and so on. Ted can always revenge himself on us for existing by simply refusing to work or to pay us, & then it would take ages to go through court to get anything, as my lawyer says, so I would be silly to put pressure on Ted, it just makes him more beastly. If he gives me the £1,000 I shall work hard to make up the rest myself & be glad to be rid of him. I shall, if the chance arises, see what Ted thinks about making Court Green & the car over in my name. But I have to go gently.
How understanding you are about my needing time! I sometimes think that if I ever get enough time I may write something really worth while! As it is, by writing from 4 am to 8 am I have finished my second book of poems. The New Yorker has just renewed* my yearly ‘first reading’ contract & accepted a lyric called ‘Amnesiac’* about a man who forgets his wife & children & lives in the river of Lethe. Guess who! I am dedicating this book of poems to Frieda & Nicholas & shall dedicate the 3rd book of poems which I have already begun to my mother. That is why I asked if you would let me dedicate my 2nd novel DOUBLETAKE to you---if you thought it good enough, for I thought mother would like a book of poems best & you as a novelist would like the novel best!
I took both babies to the Zoo this week---Nick slept, but Frieda was absolutely fascinated by the lions and owls, the new baby elephant and the penguins swimming in their “bath”. It is such fun to take Frieda about, she remembers & notices everything, it is like have a fresh expanded consciousness. The thing she was most impressed about was that the monkeys “couldn’t get out”. I thought that a very advanced notion for a girl of 2½! Do try to persuade my mother, if you can, that she has nothing to worry about. I have been so crushingly busy with this move I’ve hardly had time for a cup of tea & now I am sett
led I shall write every week, but it only adds to my worries to hear she is worried. I am very happy & delighted to be back in my element in London. Hard work never hurt anybody & I think these new responsibilities have made me grow up a lot & certainly given me very rich material for writing!
Best love to you,
Sylvia
TO Douglas Cleverdon
Sunday 16 December 1962
TLS, BBC Written Archives Centre
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
December 16, 1962
Dear Douglas,
Just a little note to say, in case Ted’s forgotten to call you about it, that I’ve used your name as a reference for applying for a priority phone, as I can’t get one for months otherwise & need it rather fiercely for my freelancing. All I guess they’ll want, if they contact you, is confirmation that I need a phone right away for journalistic work & that I do & have done programs for the BBC.
I hope this isn’t too much of a bother! Very many thanks anyhow.
Sincerely,
(Sylvia Plath)
Douglas Cleverdon, Esq.
Features, The BBC
Broadcasting House
London W.1
TO Michael Carey
Sunday 16 December 1962
TLS, Assumption College
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
Sunday: December 16
Dear Father Michael,
The various blessings have triumphed & the babies & I installed over the Yeats plaque. We moved in by candlelight, as the Electricity Board hadn’t bothered to connect it, in spite of my smog-muffled arrangements the previous week, so it was very Dickensian. We will be camping out more or less until I get several acres of ancient floorboards painted by hand, rather a trial as I would, in the evenings, much rather write poems. Do drop by for the cup of tea I couldn’t give you in North Tawton anytime you happen to be up around Primrose Hill. It’s my very favorite district in London, for when I was reading English on a Fulbright at Cambridge I was first installed in the middle of Regents’ Park to be ‘initiated’. And we spend a great deal of time at the Zoo!
My answer to the ‘what’ question is the Troll King’s answer out of Peer Gynt---‘Myself’.* Very much so, thank God. Now you will surely think I am unredeemable, but do go on blessing me nonetheless!
All best Christmas wishes,
Sylvia Plath
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 21 December 1962*
TLS with envelope in greeting card,* Indiana University
Dear mother,
I do hope these pictures* convince you of the health & happiness of us three! Susan took them, & for Xmas blew up 4 big ones for me. Frieda & I are having a December picnic in St. Ives, Cornwall!* I have never been so happy in my life. By some miracle everybody has delivered & done everything for me before Xmas---their usual “after Xmas” excuses melting miraculously away: I have fresh white walls in the lounge, pine bookcases, rush matting which looks very fine with my straw Hong Kong chairs & the little glasstopped table, also straw & black iron,* in which I can put flowerpots & currently have a lilac hyacinth. I have found the most fantastic store---Dickens & Jones,* which knocks Harrods out the window. I spent the rest of Mrs. P’s clothes money & feel & look like a million---got a Florence-Italy blue & white velvet overblouse, a deep brown velvet Italian shirt, black fake-fur toreador pants, a straight black velvet skirt & metallic blue-and-black French top. One or two other outfits made me drool, notably some Irish weave shirts--I love everything Irish, as you may imagine! But I stopped at a Viennese black leather jerkin! I haven’t had a new wardrobe for over 7 years & it’s done wonders for my morale. You should see me nipping round London in the car! I’m a real Londoner at heart, I love Fitzroy Road & this house above all. A lovely tea with Catherine Frankfort, her husband & 3 boys yesterday. Their new baby is named Nicholas. Got a lovely Scots woman babysitter from the Baby Agency while I went shopping, she had my dinner warm when I returned, & got in my old Doris, who loves the children, so I could see a marvelous new Ingmar Bergman movie* that night. Will have Xmas dinner with this lovely Portuguese couple who’ve been putting me up on my London visits & who’ve loaned me a bed. Just had two long bee poems accepted by the Atlantic,* & have been asked to judge the Cheltenham poetry contest again this year. I am in 7th heaven. Now I am out of Ted’s shadow everybody tells me their life story & warms up to me & the babies right away. Life is such fun.
Katherine is finding out about a little nursery school* round the corner where I might send Frieda mornings. The weather has been blue & springlike & I out every day with the babies. Still have the babies floors to paint, the au pair’s floors, the hall floors & 3 unpainted wood bureaus. Blue is my new color, royal, midnight (not aqua!). Ted never liked blue, & I am a really blue-period person now. With lilac & apple green accents. If you ever want to make another hit, send some more kitty balloons! I read a picture book with Frieda every night. My bedroom has yellow,& white wallpaper, straw mat, black floor borders & gold lampshade---bee colors, & the sun rises over an 18th century engraving London each day. I’d like to live in this flat forever. Mrs. P. sent me $100 for Xmas. Sent her the Byron review---do ask to see it.
Lots of love to you, Warren & Maggie,
Sivvy
PS: Tell everyone of my move, hence no cards this year. I’ve not had a second.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 26 December 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
Wednesday: December 26
Dear mother,
I wish you could see me sitting here in my gorgeous front room. Even though the day is grey & white with frost the rooms white walls flood it with light & there is a very strong oriental feeling to it with the Hongkong cane chairs, rush mats & Tokyo & Arabic glasses in lovely clear colors. I do hope you explain my move prevented me from thinking of sending any American Christmas cards this year. I did rush off about 2 dozen over here & hope you will be mollified by some color photos which I am waiting to get from Susan. I am wild for the exquisite Japanese hair ornament Warren & Maggie sent, am wearing it now at the end of a long braid, it just goes with my decor. Dear Dotty sent a $20 bill & I shall treat myself to a green velvet set of Oriental toreador pants & top at that marvelous Dickens & Jones shop in Regent Street right after this Boxing Day holiday. It is amazing how much my new hairdo & new clothes have done for my rather shattered morale. I had a lovely tea with the Frankforts, with the two beautiful blond Secker-Walker children & their parents (they lived two houses down from our Chalcot Square place) & with Susan’s Kentish Town journalist who invited a charming architect & his wife & their little girl, just Nick’s age, & some others. Garnett, Winifred’s son, dropped by & is coming for dinner Sunday. I plan to throw myself into painting the rest of the upstairs floors & 3 whitewood bureaus this week so I can give myself the treat of applying for an au pair first thing in the new year. I have been resting a bit the last few days. We went for Christmas dinner with a very nice Portuguese couple in Hampstead---they made a goose which they lit with cognac & gave Frieda a tiny toy piano that plays simple songs & Nick a rubber rabbit. I thought the outfits for Nick & Frieda Warren & Maggie sent just lovely, do thank them for me. I have been so preoccupied I have barely had time to cook. Catherine has told me of a little nursery school just round the corner which takes children from 9:30 to 12:30 & I shall try Frieda at it next week. She seems to blossom on outside experiences with other children & I think she needs this. Marty Plumer sent me a marvelous apron & the babies ‘Make Way for the Ducklings’.* I’ve not written her or anyone, but shall do as soon as I get my au pair & work started. I am hoping the BBC accepts my 20 minute program of new poetry---the producer thinks they are wonderful, but the Board still has to approve.* Then I have the commission for a program on my childhood landscape, or in my case, sea scape. Did I say Mrs. P. sent $100? A
nd bless you for your $50. I have double expenses just now---the closing expenses at North Tawton & the rather large opening ones here, but once I am settled here it will be 5 years blessed security & peace & no more floor painting! Which is a lot to look forward to & in which time I should have produced a lot of work. How lucky I am to have two beautiful babies & work! Both of them have colds, which makes them fussy, but I keep them warmly dressed & they take long naps. Did Maggie knit that gorgeous blue sweater for Frieda? Their color pictures are lovely---Frieda has claimed them. She says of every sweater “Grammy made that.”
Frieda loves the little mouse that came in Warren’s parcel. She came in holding a rusk in her hands just as the mouse is holding the corn & said ‘Like mouse.’ She is unique in seeing resemblances to things. Just now I held her up to see a fine snow falling & she said ‘Like Tomten book’,* which is about a little Scandinavian dwarf on a farm in the snow. I took the very favorite picture books to london & we ‘read” one each day. I am enjoying just sitting about with the children & making tea & breathing a little. I don’t feel to have had a holiday for years! Nick is wonderfully happy & strong. I do notice now that his left eye is slightly turned in, although for the longest time I just couldn’t see it, so I am going to my local doctors this week to ask what they think about it.*
Well, I hope to drop over to the Frankforts a bit later this evening for a “Boxing Day” supper with them & his mother.* Ted is spending the Christmas up in Yorkshire, & I naturally do get a bit homesick for relatives & was grateful to have Christmas dinner out with these friends. Frieda did very much enjoy opening presents, but is much too young to grasp more than that “Santa brought it for Frieda.” She is very encouraging about my painting floors, getting up & praising me in her little treble each day ‘Good mummy, paint floors all clean for Frieda.” She is such a joy to take out & I like having her play with the very charming children in the neighborhood.