Coronet Among the Weeds

by Charlotte Bingham

  I worked in a pool when I came back from the south of France. It was a pool belonging to a chemical firm. The pool is where they put all these girls to type. You all sit in rows and there’s an old woman of about forty who sits and watches you to see you’re working. We all had these tape-recorders, so you typed with earphones on. I really enjoyed it. It was like one of those old movies with Cary Grant. And he sees someone fabulous typing away in the pool and marries her and gets a promotion. All the girls were frightfully nice, and lent you things. And if you made a mistake you just said, it wasn’t you, it was the girl who was away.

  They didn’t even mind when they found out that my father was a lord. A lot of people mind terribly. They become awfully peculiar with you, or they spend the whole time asking you if he eats or has a bath, or if he’s even been on a train. And when you say yes, he does have a bath, and he spends most of the morning there reading the Flutters, they don’t believe you. Or they hate you. No honestly. They hate you before you’ve even opened your mouth and they hate you doubly more than they hate anyone else. If you’re working for them they get much more furious with you than any other person because they think you think you’re superior to them. They really think you think that. There’s nothing you can do about it, because they think it before they even know you. And if you do anything like making a joke or looking happy, you’re thinking you’re better than anyone else. Honestly, you’ve had it from the start.

  But none of the girls in the pool minded. They just went on being exactly the same. Me and the girl who sat next to me called Deborah used to play jet fighters with our earphones. I’d be Neville Duke and she’d be someone else and we’d make jet noises and do Morse code on our typewriters. It wasn’t a very intellectual game but it helped to make the time go quicker. And when the supervisor shouted at us we’d pretend not to hear and make extra loud jet noises. I was sad to leave that chemical firm. It’s funny the places you feel sad to leave. But I enjoyed those earphones.

  After that I went to work in this advertising agency. I was secretary to someone different every week. Everyone in advertising is ex-something. Ex-actors, ex-artists, ex-writers, and quite a few ex-people too. There’s two things they all mind about: the Client and Sex. It made me pretty depressed all these people being ex-something. I’d rather someone was a bad writer in one room than thinking up sexy ads for morons. I’m sure his wife wouldn’t but I would. ’Course if you tell people that, they think you’re boring as hell.

  There was one young man I liked in this advertising agency. He was really nice. No, honestly, it wasn’t sex, he was just nice and intelligent. We used to have chats about books and things. Everyone thought he was flirting with me or something. You can’t even say hello when people are sex-conscious and you’re in bed. They just don’t admit to anything not being sex. They don’t want anything not to be sex. I mean they practically die if everything’s not sex. And they practically kill themselves with boredom if you talk about anything else. So if they see you talking to someone they don’t want to think you’re doing something and not getting a thrill.

  I don’t think anyone liked me at that advertising agency actually. I can’t think of anyone at the moment who did. I don’t know. But I think it was basically because I wasn’t interested in sex. It’s always going to be a disadvantage. Me not being swoony about sex. Most people are. And they don’t like it if you’re not. I don’t know why. I mean I don’t mind them swooning. It’s just I can’t swoon myself. Except if you’re in love. That’s different. But most people who swoon about sex aren’t in love. And a lot of people who say they’re in love are really swooning about sex. Serious stuff.

  When I’d finished at that advertising place Migo and I went and sailed at this place in Sussex. It was my mother’s idea. She’s got this great thing that you should always do everything. She never stops thinking up new games she thinks I should play. In case I get asked and can’t play them. She has nightmares about me getting asked to play things and not being able to. So now I can do practically everything badly. I can even play Chinese cribbage. No one else can.

  Migo and I went sailing with this man with a beard. He was very nice. A lot of men with beards are. My mother doesn’t like men with beards. She says she doesn’t know what they’re hiding and it makes her nervous. Also she says imagination boggles what must get stuck in them. You don’t know what you might not find there. Anyway that’s what she says. I don’t know that I agree with her.

  We had long conversations with this man with the beard. About practically everything. It’s rather splendid. Sailing along in the sunshine talking about Freud and things. I was no good at sailing. But my mother doesn’t mind if I’m not good at things. Just so long as I can do them. She says people have it over you if you can’t do things. She says they sneer at you behind your back. I don’t mind if people sneer at me. But she does. My grandmother says that’s what happens if you sleep with a man. They’ve got it over you.

  Also just after that one of our castles got emptied. It was sold when I was about nine but most of the stuff got left there. So anyway they sent it over for us to sort it out. It was quite a sight. You try emptying a castle and putting it in a dining-room. It’s funny how quickly it goes. I mean one minute there are castles and footmen and coronets and all that, and the next there you are stomping about among lavatory brushes and coroneted napkins and that’s all that’s left. It gave me a strange feeling. Because when you see all your castle sitting in your dining-room you jolly well know that everything like that’s finished now. And if you don’t realise it’s all finished now, you’ve had it. You get weeded out. No honestly you do. I know lots of people and they just can’t cope because they don’t want to realise it’s finished. They won’t let themselves realise it.

  There were lots of miniatures of ancestors with serene expressions. It made you wonder what it must have been like then. Because they never doubted they were marvellous. And of course owning so much stuff only made them think it all the more. Actually my grandmother’s like that. She’s absolutely sure she’s better than a whole lot of people. Not in a nasty way at all. She’s just quite sure about it. No one’s like that now. I mean no one’s even sure about the whole world being better, for heaven’s sake. I suppose it’s old-fashioned to be sure.

  8

  I’ve a fixation with Japan. I’ve never met anyone else who has. I don’t know where I got it from. I once asked my father if we have any Japanese blood. He didn’t seem to think so. He said you didn’t get much Japanese population in Western Ireland. He’s a bit Buddhist my father. Very philosophical and all that. Anyway my mother asked this Japanese poet who lived in Paris to dinner once. Honestly, he was something. He talked about being madly Zen, which I knew about. On account of being an ex-beatnik. And he did all this Japanese painting on silk and arranging one flower on a bit of bark. Actually most Japanese people arrange things on bark I suppose, but he was the first one I’d had dinner with.

  After the Japanese man had been to dinner he wrote and asked me to have dinner with him; we went to a Chinese restaurant in the King’s Road. He chose all the food. All really genuine Oriental stuff; no Americanised dishes. It was very interesting of course, but I prefer the ordinary old sweet-sour this and that and bean sprouts. Mind you, my mother says I’m the sort of person who’d rather eat Tacky Snack pies and tomato ketchup than anything else. My father’s a bit like that. He’s always having bread and dripping when my mother’s not looking.

  Anyway we had this dinner, and talked some more about Buddha and cherry blossom. There is quite a lot to say about Buddha and cherry blossom. He told me about his father who was a Buddhist scholar and then he asked me to come and listen to a record in his flat. I said all right because it seemed a bit rude to say no. Half-way there I did begin to get a bit nervous though. It was in the taxi really. He didn’t look so inscrutable. I mean I think I did know what he was thinking about after all.

  He had one of those terribly quiet flats. Wi
th lights over the pictures and a deaf housekeeper somewhere. I sat on the sofa and he put on a record and asked me to dance with him. I didn’t want to in the least. I like dancing, but not just by myself in someone’s flat. Well, not with a friend of my mother’s anyway. Besides he was quite old. I suppose for one glorious evening he’d forgotten he was.

  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I mean I thought perhaps it was an old Japanese custom to dance after dinner. But I said I thought I’d like to listen to his record for a bit first. And then maybe dance later. So we sat and listened to this record. Him at one end of the sofa and me at the other. Then he said, could he recite me one of his poems? So he did, and while he was reciting it kept on moving closer and closer till I was practically flattened against the side of the sofa. Then he said I was like a cherry blossom blowing in a spring breeze. I said, what gave him that idea, and he said he’d thought it ever since he’d first seen me. He said he supposed he couldn’t ever hope that the cherry blossom could be his, could he? I thought not. I really did. To tell you the truth I was nervous, not to say worried. It can be a bit worrying with only a deaf housekeeper about. I mean you can’t help thinking, supposing he tries to pick the blossom for himself?

  We had a bit of an argument about me being a cherry blossom. I said I thought the cherry blossom’s mother might be anxious about her. He calmed down a bit then. My mother’s no laughing matter sometimes, so it helps every now and then to mutter about her if you’re a bit in dickey’s meadow. He looked very sad when I pretended to worry about my mother. He said it would always be the tragedy of his life that I was forbidden fruit. It seemed to have come on autumn suddenly. I said, yes, it was pretty tragic. So anyway, little forbidden old me got in a taxi and went home. My mother shrieked with laughter when I told her. She’d warned me about Japanese etchings; how was I to know they would turn into just the old jazz – with Brubeck? Still, it’s all good experience.

  About this time they all got into a bit of a thing about what sort of a job I should do. They said I had to settle down and do a proper job. Only no one could think of what I could do. Mostly because of me not being very bright. There aren’t many jobs about for girls who aren’t bright, and no good at shorthand. I mean I can do it. But I’m no good at it. The thing is most girls are either bright and don’t do shorthand or dumb and marvellous at shorthand. It’s not often you get girls who can’t do anything like me. And when you do, jobs for them are a bit limited, I can tell you.

  What I did was to go to all these agencies and they gave me jobs to go and see. But, you see, it was the same thing everywhere. They wanted you to be either clever or good at shorthand. It was a bit depressing. I mean you feel a bit of a failure when no one wants you. Not that you blame them not wanting you. I mean, if I interviewed me, I don’t think I’d want me either. In fact I’m sure I wouldn’t. Most of all what’s wrong with me is I talk and make jokes. I can’t help it. It’s a nervous habit with me. Every time someone asks me what I like doing or what I can do, I start making jokes. Psychologically I suppose it’s because I’m trying to cover up that I can never think of anything I like doing, let alone anything I actually can do. I can only think of things I’d like to do if I was someone else. Not many people want to know about that. Not when they’re looking for a secretary or something.

  Anyway it makes you pretty depressed really. Feeling a failure. You just go on and on seeing all these people. You can feel they don’t like the look of you and they say polite things about getting in touch with you later. And however you dress you’re wrong. If you wear a camel-haired coat, they think they don’t want a dreary bag like you in their office and, if you look smart and with it, they think it might be dangerous to have a tarty piece among the files. You can’t help wondering what it must be like if you had a sick mother and really needed the job. Not being clever or good at shorthand you’d be worried I can tell you. I was only worried because my father was getting a bit bored of paying my bills and me being a failure. And I didn’t have a sick mother or anything.

  It would have been all right if there had been another failure in the family. You could just say you took after them, but all my family aren’t failures. I was the only one. That’s the worst thing about being a failure, being alone. My father says it’s the same thing when you’re a martyr. You’re alone. You feel such a ninny being tortured all by yourself. It’s not so bad if you’re singing and holding palms with lots of other martyrs. Being by yourself is the worst thing.

  I’ve forgotten how many jobs I went for. Millions and millions. Anyway, then I went to this one which was a woman who wanted a secretary. She was a pretty funny-looking, very tall woman, quite jokey but with these very glittery eyes. Anyway, she hadn’t talked to me for five minutes when she said she’d have me. I was pretty flattered I can tell you. When you’ve been practically everywhere hoping people will like you, you’re pretty flattered when someone likes you after only five minutes. I thought she was probably terribly acute. My mother couldn’t believe it. She was really thrilled. She thought at last I was going to stop being a failure.

  The job was helping this woman run a shop in Hampstead for these different kinds of writing paper. She was in charge of the shop, and also there was one other man. I had an office and my own typewriter and telephone. Pretty important. And the woman was terribly nice. She was always coming in and having little chats with me, and I arranged the shop in a different way and she said it was the best it had ever been done and I must have an artistic nature. I’m a sucker for people telling me I’m artistic. Honestly, you’ve only got to tell me I’m artistic and I’ll be their friend for life. I never believe anything else people say to me, only when they say I’m artistic. I suppose it’s because I’m not and I’d like to be.

  I had to take a bit of dictation from this man as well. He was pretty ghastly. I mean even if you felt sorry for him, but he was still ghastly. You know what he looked like – he looked like a monkey with one of those hanging upper lips. And he used to suck it after every comma. His lip I mean. Honestly, all the time, comma, suck, comma, suck. It got you down it really did. He was terrified of this other woman. I couldn’t understand it. Every time she went into his office he’d start scratching and shaking all over the place. Even when she rang him up he’d start shaking. I thought he was nuts. I mean, this woman, there was something funny about her, but she was quite jokey most of the time.

  They had salesmen selling suitcases full of samples of this writing paper all round the country and at the beginning of every month they’d stomp in and go over all their stuff with the man and this woman. They waited in my office till she called them in. You know what. They went on just like that nutty man, shaking up and down and chain smoking. It really got me down seeing these men twitching all over the place. And all they’d got to do was have a little chat and go over their stuff with her. After a bit I asked one of them why he was in such a state, and he said it was because this woman hated men.

  I didn’t think much about this woman hating men. I just thought I was lucky being a girl, because I didn’t have to twitch every time she spoke to me. In fact she became nicer and nicer to me. Really lovely. I’d never worked for a woman before who was so nice. She took me shopping with her and had coffee with me and everything. I couldn’t get over it. I thought at last I’d found my vocation in life.

  It was swoons all round till one afternoon when I was helping her count up all this writing paper and check it off on a list. I couldn’t understand why she kept on bumping into me. And then laughing. I mean, there I was humming away counting up all this stuff, and the next minute she’d bump into me from behind and give this funny laugh. Then we were in this large cupboard under the stairs counting up more of this stuff and she started pushing me into these piles of writing paper, and her eyes looked all starey.

  Do you know it never clicked till then. I told you I was dumb. I mean she’d got these funny eyes, but nothing else. Lesbians aren’t my subject. I suppose it was rathe
r funny actually. Her chasing me round this cupboard and all these stacks of writing paper. I found it a bit difficult to laugh though. What I did do was, I dashed out of that cupboard and locked myself in the loo.

  Of course after that she was absolutely foul. I realised some lesbians are the same as men. I mean if you refuse to sleep with a man he’s always terribly rude to you. And I realised why all those men twitched all the time. I asked one of them why he didn’t leave. But he just said he couldn’t, he didn’t think he’d find another job. He was dumb like me, and also he was fifty and had three children. He said she knew that. That’s why she could be as nasty as she liked. I don’t think anything but bad of her. If you’d seen those poor dumb salesmen twitching you would agree.

  What happened in the end was that she sacked me the same time as I gave in my notice. My mother was furious. The thing was, I was back where I started. Being a failure again. And it can be pretty nerve-racking having a failure maping round the house. I couldn’t tell her about this old girl being a lesbian, because I didn’t want to talk about it. When something like that happens I can’t talk about it for ages afterwards. I don’t know why I can’t, it’s po-faced of me. But I just can’t. I was the same when that sex maniac leaped on me.

  I didn’t start looking for another job. We were all too bored about me being a failure to be able to think about it for a bit; I started writing this really dull novel. I used to wear this red flannel nightdress to write in. I couldn’t write a word unless I had this nightdress on. That’s what I did practically all the time. Write this corny novel or spend hours looking at myself in the mirror. No honestly. I spent hours and hours looking at myself and having long conversations with myself. Well, it wasn’t always just with myself; sometimes I’d pretend I was talking to someone else. Most of the time I just talked to myself though. You probably think I’m nuts. But I know millions of people who spend a lot of time talking to themselves in mirrors. It’s not only me that does it. Actually I still have conversations with myself walking along the street. It can be pretty lonely walking along the street and you don’t notice it so much if you have a conversation with yourself. The time goes much quicker.