Private Papers

by Margaret Forster

  *

  Well, she should’ve regretted it. It was monstrous. How complacent and virtuous she sounds, and yet what she did was vile. Presenting herself as Celia’s saviour, when she was trying to smash her love affair, and not seeing that discovering the truth herself might have been salutary for Celia. Playing God, that was what she was doing, yet without the Almighty’s superior and much more comprehensive information. Maybe that third wife was a bitch, maybe Andrew always intended to tell Celia, maybe he was ill done by. Who could tell? Certainly not Mother. For an intelligent woman, she seems to have been remarkably silly. My God, if it had been me! But she wouldn’t have tried it on with me. She’d given up trying to protect me. Celia, though, still belonged, still had things done for her sake, but really for the family’s. No wonder Mother felt ‘apprehensive’. She ought to have been bloody terrified.

  What kind of world did Mother think she was living in? Victorian England? She never doubted for a moment that Andrew would confess and saintly Celia would recoil in horror and cast him off. Of course, Andrew did no such thing, not straight away. He bundled Celia off, sharpish. Mother rang me, when she could get no reply from Celia’s flat, after telephoning non-stop all week. She’d been told by the Regent’s Park supervisor that Miss Butler had taken a month’s holiday. Mother seemed to have some crazy idea that Andrew had abducted her. I tried to calm her down. Why shouldn’t they go on holiday? Was there a law against it, or another saying mothers had to be informed? Then Mother told me Mr Bayliss’s True Circumstances (though not how she discovered them). I said I couldn’t see it mattered, frankly. Mother kept bleating that I didn’t seem to have taken in the fact that there was a baby involved. When the truant pair returned – no having-a-good-time postcards, I’m afraid – Celia went to see Mother. She said Andrew had told her on holiday about his existing wife and his child. She said she was sorry to hurt Mother but, in spite of the shock, her feelings for Andrew hadn’t changed. She still loved him. If anything, she felt he needed her more than ever: he’d got into such a mess and it wasn’t his fault. Mother apparently blocked her ears and said she wouldn’t listen to such cant. I know all this because Emily told me. Emily and I were so amazed at old Celia making such a stand that we both tried to support her by ridiculing Mother and waving the flag. But Celia didn’t want us. She was totally obsessed with reforming Andrew and showing him that the love of a good woman could redeem anyone. Well, it didn’t. Andrew left her after a year, during which I think she must’ve gone through hell. Afterwards, of course, Mother took her to her bosom and consoled her, but Celia didn’t need her in the same way any more. Mother said Andrew Bayliss only brought Celia ‘heartache and misery’, but she was quite wrong.

  And now the gardeners are coming in and I must stop.

  May 21st

  HADN’T EVEN THOUGHT of doing another Exhibition, not so soon, but Rosemary came to take me to the first day of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Ought to have suspected something straight away – she hates the Summer Exhibition, sneers every year at my pleasure in it. Only fifteen people waiting to go in. We were first into the galleries. Such lovely pictures. No 314 was so sweet, an elderly woman, in a red hat, sitting in a most comfortable, old chair and looking at a photograph album. To her right, a chest out of which spilled toys; to her left a bookshelf of children’s books. Rosemary said it was a perfect example of what gave this exhibition a bad name. She was ecstatic over something called Convolution by Sandra Blow, a pointless (to me) big square of white, with blue stuck on it in a vague flower-like shape. The sculptures were lovely. A darling, fat, little girl in Gallery 9 and a duck which Celia would love. Rosemary liked something called Sphinx, a female figure with a bird head and claws. Ugh. Rosemary went ahead, stood waiting at the bottom of the last gallery. I thought she was bored, so I hurried. No 1752 was an etching of a bridge in Bath, pretty. No 1756 an aquatint of an acacia tree. I like things like that. Did wish Rosemary was not so impatient, that she didn’t make me so self-conscious. Then my eye caught the title of the last etching, No 1758. Daniel in Uniform, it said. I looked at it. I looked back at the catalogue. My heart started to thud. No 1758, Daniel in Uniform by Rosemary Butler. Rosemary turned, smiling, quizzical. She said what a joke. My daughter, with a picture hung in the Royal Academy. Tears in my eyes. Rosemary laughing and scoffing, me clutching her: how foolish we must have looked. Rosemary said it was a very small etching, a nothing, and, as for being hung in the Royal Academy, the Summer Exhibition didn’t count, it was an embarrassment not an honour. But she couldn’t spoil my elation. It was not just having the etching there, the honour, I insist the honour, but doing it and entering it, because she could only have done it for me, couldn’t she? To please me. To think she even wants to please me pleases me. Maybe it should not. Maybe it is an ominous sign. But I refuse to interpret it as such. No 1758, Daniel in Uniform by Rosemary Butler. That is something.

  *

  Wasn’t that sweet? I’m glad I left that diary entry for this time. Quite uplifting. What a nice daughter I am after all.

  Mother is in hospital, having the most minor of operations, though from the fuss Celia is making you’d think it was a heart transplant. She’s .having a wisdom tooth out. I’d have thought, at her age, that she’d be past such horrors. I suppose most old folk have artificial choppers, so the problem never arises. Anyway, Mother’s having this tooth whipped out and she’s in the Royal Free, for a day and night, so for once there’s no hurry. I can stay as long as I want and read as much as I like. The trouble is, my enthusiasm is waning. I want to jump ahead to see what Mother says about Emily and Daniel but I know that’s a long way off still. I know I really ought to finish off Celia because Mother’s going to get all that so wrong it’s my positive duty to correct her version. Wow, how easy it is to be as pompous as Mother.

  *

  — typically, announced she was giving her inheritance away. There was no warning, no discussion. Celia simply made these tremendous changes in her life and then informed me. She was selling her lovely flat and moving into a bed-sitting room. She was giving the money she would make to Shelter, the charity housing association.

  It was, I think, cruel not to prepare me, especially when, as Celia perfectly well knew, I was feeling so happy about her future at long last. Andrew Bayliss was forgotten and she had given up gardening to start training as a social worker. I was delighted. Nothing had pleased me more for years. Rosemary made sarcastic comments about Celia being one of nature’s social workers, why train her, but she could not spoil my pleasure. It seemed to me that Celia might now begin to fulfil herself. Then she came out with this extraordinary piece of news and I was angry.

  ‘You’ll only sneer,’ she said when I asked for an explanation. She blushed as she said it. Celia blushes easily. When she was a child, it used to be rather charming but now her red face makes her look choleric, in a most unattractive way. I asked her how she could imagine I would ever sneer at my own daughter. ‘Then you will laugh,’ she said. ‘You will mock me, as you always do, you and Rosemary.’ I said surely she was confusing affectionate teasing with unkind mockery. She said she was not, but that, even if I called it teasing, she still did not want to have to put up with it. I saw she was close to tears and was moved, in spite of my furious disapproval. I tried to be gentle and understanding, begging her to try to explain, promising I would not deride anything she said. What she did say, in a halting and emotional voice quite unlike her normal phlegmatic tones, was that she could not go on having so much when others had so little. She did not need her flat. It was I who had wished it upon her. She was not a homemaker like me and Emily, her domestic surroundings were unimportant to her. All she needed was one big room and decent cooking facilities. She said she was acquainted with the truly homeless, that she had met them in the parks, the people who had nowhere else to go and were not tramps or derelicts. It made sense to her to give the proceeds from the sale of her flat to Shelter. She was relieved to be moving to o
ne room in a poorer area. I suggested, cunningly, that she would miss a garden but she said she could make do with mine, if I had no objection.

  ‘No objection’. All I objected to was the unnecessary silliness of her extravagant gesture. I could not stop her. I have never stopped any of them from carrying out these foolish decisions. ‘I don’t want much,’ Celia said and I replied, ‘Then you ought to.’ Afterwards —

  *

  All these fine phrases – phoney. Mother’s back in the 1930s, in a melodrama. Celia’s as bad, if she really did talk like that. She should’ve said sod off, Mother, it’s my money, so cut the crap. Something like that, short and sharp.

  Of course, I agree with Mother, who wouldn’t. Bloody stupid thing to do, so uncreative, not even fun. And she carried it through, sold her gorgeous flat and rented a bed-sitter with kitchen in Notting Hill Gate, which in those days was one of the most run-down areas in London. It was worse than any place I ever had and it shocked Mother who cried woe is me for years. But Celia loved it. Living where she did meant she was never off duty as a social worker, once she qualified and got a job. At last, she was in her element. I went to see her occasionally, just for a laugh. I liked to see her in action, endlessly besieged by scroungers who’d got her measure and were exploiting her kindness. They took the piss shamelessly, I thought, hardly bothering to pretend otherwise. At one time, Celia had three unmarried mothers all sleeping on her floor, dear God. She spent hours filling in people’s forms and writing official letters for them, all without complaint. I was deeply sceptical. Someone, I knew, would come along sooner or later and really fuck her up. She was such a pushover.

  Frank was an ex-prisoner, ex-alcoholic, ex-everything you could think of. He was a total wreck and worst of all older than Mother. Celia said he came from a family of fourteen, from County Mayo, and that He Had Never Had a Chance. (Mother’s face set mutinously at that.) Once she’d met Frank, who moved in permanently with Celia towards the end of 1969, Mother went so far as to say it was past her understanding. God knew why she’d taken him in, God only knew where it would all end . . . She was only prevented from turning the arrival of Frank into a major catastrophe by the distraction of Emily’s illness. But I presume she will go back and begin at the beginning with Emily.

  *

  — everyone had thought I would be ecstatic. Mark Perrit was such a nice boy, so steady, so strong, so cheerful. Not a black mark against him. He came from such a pleasant family, so respectable, so caring. He was clever and diligent. He had such a good future before him. What more could a mother have wanted, especially for a daughter whose aim had always been to marry and have children? But I did want more. I wanted Emily to have some freedom first. Eighteen was obscenely young to marry, straight from school, no life in between. When I said so, Emily frowned and reminded me I had been only eighteen myself. She was going to marry not die, what did I mean she would not have any life? Were not wives alive? Were not mothers alive? Emily said she could not wait. She wanted to marry and be a wife and have children at once. It was no good going to University or College, it did not appeal to her, the very idea of studying as a way of life was ludicrous. She would rather be a dancer but she could still dance, for fun, and set up house and have babies. I wasted my breath in arguments. Yes, Emily said, she knew she was consigning herself to domestic drudgery, to being a man’s slave and she was glad. That was what she wanted to do.

  I thought Mark ought to have persuaded her otherwise, if I could not. He was, as everyone said, a truly nice boy. A little gauche, a little solemn, but certainly indisputably nice. He met Emily just before ‘A’ Levels. His subject was maths (he was training to be an accountant). Though he had done well, he did not want to go to University but already had a job in the City. Like Emily, he had some money left to him by an uncle, which he had come into at eighteen. This, he explained to me at tedious length when he asked for Emily’s hand, was sufficient to buy a small house in Surrey, somewhere about forty miles from London. I need not worry about Emily lacking security. It was supposed to please me, I expect, this quaint request for Emily’s hand. I could almost hear her telling Mark to do it properly, take some flowers, put a suit on, Mother will love it. Mother did not love it. I heard him out and then I said no, my permission would not be forthcoming. Legally, they did not need it but, if they thought my agreement was therefore a formality, I was afraid they were going to be disappointed. I did not want Emily to marry yet and that was that. Mark was upset rather than angry. He looked at me with those rather too narrow, blue eyes and said, ‘Don’t you like me?’ It was impossible to reply that, although I liked him well enough, I did not think him a suitable match for Emily. I could not tell him I thought he was dull and boring, whereas she was lively and fun-loving. I could not add that I thought his proposed way of life even duller and more boring. So I said that, of course, I liked him, that did not come into it. All I wanted was for them to wait. I asked him if he could not see what would happen to Emily, if she became a housewife in Surrey at the age of eighteen and had, as she intended, four children as soon as possible. He said he thought she would be very happy and what was so awful about it? He would have thought I, of all people, would approve. It was not as though he was suggesting living-in-sin or anything. I stared at his aggrieved face and thought my dear boy you are never going to know about anything as exciting as sin, you will condemn my daughter to the most sin-free existence possible, and she will drown in virtue.

  There were no scenes. Emily acted as though I had not said what I had said. She was so happy, nothing was going to be allowed to mar her happiness. She sang around the flat, beamed and smiled, went on being as cheerful as ever and merely mocked my gloom. The wedding plans went on without me and, of course, I could not keep up my hostility. If Emily was determined to marry, and she was, she must be married from home. She told me that, if I really did not want anything to do with it, she (giving me a kiss) would do it all herself and I (giving me another kiss) could sit at home and talk to myself like the old grump I was. Not even my tears, which I never intended and of which I was ashamed, moved her. She wiped them away, and told me firmly to stop getting in a state. She was quite, quite sure she wanted to marry Mark. It was her life and I must let her live it her own way.

  I detested Mark’s parents. His father, Lionel Perrit, was a small, thin, precise, pernickety man with an unexpectedly loud voice. I was surprised he was not in any way opposed to his only son’s marriage at such a tender age, that he did not turn out to be my ally. But no, he appeared delighted, he was emphatically in favour of the marriage (or ‘the love-match’ as he so odiously called it). All he wanted for Markie was that he should ‘settle down quickly’ in every way, which was just what he had done himself. His father had been a shopkeeper, owning a chain of grocery shops, and Lionel at sixteen had gone to work in one of them, rising quickly to the heady heights of manager at the age Mark now was. He was delighted that Mark was going to be an accountant. He had no further aspirations for him, nor had Freda, his gushing wife. She was absolutely awful: silly, vacuous, giggly, and noisy. What a mother-in-law for Emily to have to endure. When I first went to their house in Pinner I could hardly tolerate being in the same room. I felt stifled, not just by the excessive heat from the imitation coal fire on top of central heating, but by the atmosphere of self-congratulation. Freda could not stop boasting: Mark was a lovely boy, lovely manners, so clever, so hard working, so domesticated, so lucky to have a little nest egg from his Uncle George, who had been so fond of him because he was always a lovely boy with lovely manners, so clever . . . I wanted to scream. And there was nothing I could say to offset this gushing. I know I came across as stiff and frigid and aloof, that I was distant and off-putting. All the time, as we crouched in front of the hideous fire belting out unnecessary extra heat, I was thinking that Emily had done no better than I had done. I had to take on Grandmother Butler, Emily the overpowering Perrits.

  The Perrits were very religious, C of E, naturally.
Lionel was a sidesman at the local church and Freda did the flowers every third Sunday. Mark had been a choir-boy until his voice broke. It was Lionel and Freda’s dearest wish that Mark should marry in their church and, to their delight, Emily agreed. I was disgusted, accused her of blatant hypocrisy on top of everything else. She said that it harmed nobody and pleased Mark’s parents. It was an easy thing to do to make them happy. I wanted to ask why it was more important to please Mark’s parents than it was to respect my wishes but I held back from this complaint. I knew I was behaving badly enough already. I must stop. So I concentrated on the details of the wedding and, though I got no pleasure from this, it did console me to do the job efficiently. Although I rarely sew, I made Emily’s dress myself. It was long and severe and simple. The material was exquisite, a thick, creamy satin, which seemed to give off light as she walked. She looked absolutely beautiful. The Perrit bridesmaids looked vulgar and loud in vile pink net dresses more suited to gaudy fairies on the top of a Christmas tree. There were two of them, both nieces of Lionel’s, both ugly fat girls of around ten. I could hardly bear to see them anywhere near Emily. Oh, the whole charade was heartbreaking and the worst part of all was seeing Emily come down the aisle on the arm of her piano teacher. There was no one to give her away, no father, brother, cousin, uncle. Simon Birch, who might have obliged, was by then working in America. It was all too humiliating. That I could summon up no delighted man to perform this solemn duty seemed to me an indictment of my way of life. Emily suggested her piano teacher. He had taught her for ten years, brought her from Grade i to 8, and she had always adored him. He was a lovely, gentle, kind man and appeared genuinely moved at Emily’s invitation to stand in for her father. But, as I watched Emily come towards me on the arm of this substitute, I felt such acute pain I had to turn away and hide my face. Never, ever, have I missed Oliver more. On either side I had Rosemary and Celia, who both nudged me as my sobs refused to be muffled, but I felt isolated and defenceless. Emily’s wedding seemed the nadir of all my hopes and expectations. When the words of the marriage service were said out loud – ‘till death do us part’ – it was like the sound of doom in my ears. We were parted.