by Mo McDonald
‘WHY WAS MY VERSE SO BARREN OF NEW PRIDE,
SO FAR FROM VARIATION OR QUICK CHANGE?
WHY WITH THE TIME DO I NOT GLANCE ASIDE
TO NEW FOUND METHODS AND TO COMPOUNDS STRANGE?
WHY WRITE I STILL ALL ONE, EVER THE SAME,
AND KEEP INVENTION IN A NOTED WEED,
THAT EVERY WORD DOTH ALMOST TELL MY NAME,
SHOWING THEIR BIRTH AND WHERE THEY DID PROCEED
O KNOW, SWEET LOVE, I ALWAYS WRITE OF YOU,
AND YOU AND LOVE ARE STILL MY ARGUMENT;
SO ALL MY BEST IS DRESSING OLD WORDS NEW,
SPENDING AGAIN WHAT IS ALREADY SPENT;
FOR AS THE SUN IS DAILY NEW AND OLD,
SO IS MY LOVE STILL TELLING WHAT IS TOLD?’
As I unfolded the paper, pressed rose petals fell across my desk; this gesture of hers moved me to a strong tender feeling towards her. I had to fight the yearning to respond immediately. Instead, I decided that Jung’s principles must be followed and I would think of a way through my work to show my thanks. A few days later, she amazed me, though!
Dear Jack,
I have just read Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung!
Love,
Marian.
PS Once again, thank you.
Then, within a day or two, another postcard followed: the picture was of a front door with a rainbow coming through the letterbox. Patrick Hughes, the artist, called it ‘Indoor Rainbow’. Marian wrote on the back…
Dear Jack,
Love to animus from anima. I hope this is the right way round!
Love,
Marian.
PS I badly want to hear from you again, when you are next on air. By the way, do you know that the telegram has been done away with as of today, after 139 years of sending messages? They say it’s progress! M.
She had got it the wrong way round, but I didn’t point it out. I was blown away by the journey that she was on. I felt excited and apprehensive all at the same time. My reply was immediate; I just couldn’t help myself!
Dear Marian,
How nice to hear from you again. Thank you very much for the card; it was much appreciated. I hope that you are still keeping well.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Jack Kelly
It was truly amazing, she was so completely into my psychology and even ahead of what I was planning. It was unnerving to think that I was about to show the anima and the animus in the forthcoming season and there she was pointing it out ahead of me. I went to my cutting room feeling like the bewildered wizard whose spells were so powerful that they worked even before he had a chance to cast them. And who was mesmerising who and how? The vital flux between us seemed to pass thought waves in the air without the assistance of conventional electricity! She had plugged herself into my thought pattern as the perfect apprentice, learning the skills like an electrical engineer of the mind. It excited me and at that moment in time I was tempted to share my secret with other writers to see what they made of it all, but I was too deep within myself to bring it out into the open.
The programmes were already made and I had edited them for the season. It was always a case of presenting the show each week when the allocated time arrived. The team had been busy for months shooting on location or in the studio with me interviewing the subject or speaking over the subject matter. I had the power of the editor to bring the piece alive before the final TV recording of each week’s programme. So it was with an omnipotent air of the undercover agent that I sat before the crew, as the camera rolled, bringing my ever-increasing talent before an unsuspecting audience. I was on a high like no drug could possibly match and it was all my own doing. I loved it.
JACK
The season opened with a talk about John Fowles’ book The French Lieutenant’s Woman and its success as a film. One day, while sitting at his desk, he imagined a woman in a black cloak standing on the edge of the Cobb, barely visible in the mist. His home was on a hilltop overlooking the sea at Lyme Regis and the famous timeless scene was written from there.
The story shows how a young woman seeks the help of a stranger to the town. She tells him a lie about her past in order to gain his interest; once he allows himself to love her, she disappears from his life in order to find herself. Many painful years later they meet again, she a successful artist, he a broken man. What the writer’s clever story illustrates is Jung’s idea of the animus: the woman had to forget all about love in order to develop her animus, so that her creative self might be found. But first she had to know of love. The man, however, suffered because he allowed himself to love a real woman too much. Instead, he should have recognised the woman within himself, his anima. He was already married and a successful man, yet he allowed love to destroy all that. I tried to be subtle when editing the clips of the film, not wanting to expose my intentions to the viewing audience, but wanting Marian to understand where I was coming from. Two days later, her letter arrived.
Dear Jack,
Welcome back. The programme last night was so interesting, because having seen the film and enjoyed it, I now love every minute of the book. There were a couple of points from it that I would have liked you to explore regarding Sarah – an hour is just not long enough! I hope that you are fine. It is strange, but after the programme I had the feeling that you were displeased with me. I felt perplexed.
Love to you,
Marian
A postcard dated the same day as the letter also arrived…
Hallo,
The penny has just fallen! How clever you are.
M.
I quickly dictated my reply.
Dear Marian,
Thank you for your letter. I’m glad you enjoyed the subject. I, too, was a little perplexed at the end of the programme because it was not quite as pertinent as I wanted it to be.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Jack Kelly
I wanted her to know that I would have liked to have had more detail from the film/book, but that would have been too obvious to the watching world! However, the shock that I had indeed drawn her into my innermost psyche was disturbing; it felt as if the fruits of my scheming would now haunt me, following me like a shadow. She had become my outer ego. I made the conscious decision that by the end of the season I would distance myself, shake off the possible noose from around my neck. I wasn’t used to being stalked in the mind and I could smell danger ahead. I had wanted this, but it started to feel claustrophobic because, after all, my freedom was in my creative world and I would have no place to hide if Marian were to decipher my imagination in the way that she so obviously was beginning to. It was one thing to have a devoted follower, a disciple, but not a mind reader who had me under a microscope. I had welcomed her as a muse but I was beginning to feel the need for an iron curtain, once my continued plan came to its conclusion. I couldn’t drop the proposed programmes, so I would see them through and guide her along to independence, where she could stand alone intellectually.
I felt emotionally confused as I went about my everyday life; it was easier said than done keeping reality and art separate and to switch off from such a powerful experience. It was all-embracing, a little like an animal gnawing away inside my head, never letting me be. It was troublesome and yet I had to rub it like a sore until it festered. It was a way of knowing that I was alive. So it went on, the bittersweet experiment of the mind, ever powerful, ever threatening, ever testing.
Dear Jack,
Thank you for the Everly Brothers singing of ‘All I Have to do is Dream.’ You always know what I need.
Love,
Marian
This referred to my filming of the Everly Brothers and other famous American singers from the sixties. The programme ended with the whole of the song as the titles faded aw
ay with the words.
I edited it so as to send a romantic message across the airwaves to Marian. The heady feeling of being in love consumed me, I felt addicted to its power and within its grip. I had, of course, made the filming of that programme some weeks before, thinking that Marian would indeed be flattered by my romantic gesture, but I know that I was becoming more and more uncomfortable about her probing the naked truth behind my unconscious. It had seemed absolutely fine to allow myself to fall in love with the idea of Marian until she became simply a hair’s breadth away from my innermost imaginings. Indeed, I started to feel like a hare in the spotlight, blinded by the glare of her enlightenment. I bought Queen’s newly released Greatest Hits album that evening and its energy helped me to ponder what I was to do, as it blasted out in the living room after dinner.
MARIAN
I can remember the excitement of what I was discovering about the human mind, and what spurred me on was the thought that I was writing to a writer. I wondered what it meant to have the writer’s mind. How was it different from mine, the reader?
I found the notes that my father had kept of his time serving first in England, France, Belgium, Holland and finally in Germany. He had given his diary to me a few years back for the book group I attended to refer to when we were reading a novel about the war. I even turned my hand to writing about his experiences – I thought of it as a test to see if I, too, could write. He had written about his journey through time, waiting for the years to pass for the war to be over. I remembered that he had been sent to enlist with the Leicestershire Yeomanry and his notes explained that several units had joined the Guards Armoured Division in September 1941. He wrote what a raw lot they were because they didn’t know each other and they didn’t have much equipment or any experience. He mentioned the months of training on the Salisbury Plain and exercises in Norfolk and Yorkshire, where they began to obtain more and more equipment and more and more experience, finishing up with countless manoeuvres on the Wolds and in the south of England. He said that they were trained and more than ready for action for five years, but not tested in battle during the long and ceaseless wait.
As I wrote, I referred to him by name sometimes – Mick. Mick had often made light of being soaked to the skin and the luxury of being able to sleep in a dry ditch when possible, so that his wet clothes could dry on him overnight. He would point this out as we drove on holiday in the fifties, to the West Country, passing through the open, treeless Salisbury Plain. I had thought it just another of his wonderful stories, not understanding the harsh reality and that it was a fairly recent experience to him. No wonder he suffered the pains of arthritis in later life.
The heading on the notebook read ‘130 Battery, R.A.’ and at times I had difficulty in reading his handwriting. He explained that they had waited for five years expecting to see action at any time. All units were on standby waiting, and in 1941 when the Tiger Troop went to defend the Trent from the Humber to Newark against invasion, they wished it had been their outfit that was deployed. That troop was then the only artillery supporting the 22nd Armoured Brigade and under Major Brassey.
The men were getting frustrated year after year when each of the many exercises were said to be their last before combat would commence. Then, in June 1944, it looked as if their moment had come and they were given endless lectures about their journey to France. At last, they came to the first stage, Scarborough, but still they waited. Then down to Eastbourne until D-Day, where they waited for orders to move.
I had been shown the pleasant detached house on the seafront where my father had been billeted. He made light of it, as he showed us it on a day’s outing to the seaside. Not mentioning the feeling of anticipation that he must have felt when waiting there. He showed us the nearby Beachy Head, which he pointed out was renowned for suicide cases and I was filled with horror when looking down at the rocks below, but as a child I was unaware whether it had worried him during his time there. In my innocence, I had felt that he had been lucky to be in such a nice seaside town. I didn’t comprehend what it had meant to be waiting to go to fight in battle. I had thought it very far removed from my life and time.
When the orders did come, they left at 2 a.m. to be ready at Southampton by 0900 hours and were told that they would only be in the marshalling area for 48 hours. However, their last wait was to be ten days, before commencing by boat to Normandy. They went on route marches to find strawberries by day and visited the town by night. He remembered embarking on the American tank landing ship, known simply as an LST, in the dark on 26 June and that they had a fairly easy voyage, although his notes mentioned that poor old Bill was terribly seasick and that he had even refused to go home on leave the first time it was due, after feeling so wretched. Bill even managed to find the time to bury his false teeth as he landed on the beach, never to wear any again.
The battery’s first attempt at going ashore was not successful because they pulled in next to a hole on the beach and it was too deep for them to get off. This meant that they had to put out to sea again and those who were not suffering from seasickness spent the day overeating on American rations. Despite the disappointment of waiting yet again, they enjoyed that luxury after many years of British army rations. As darkness fell, there was a fierce thunderstorm that set alight the barrage balloons and as they disembarked, all the training they had done in waterproofs proved to be of little use, because they finally landed in about a foot of water. During the night, the Battery were split up but they managed to assemble, come daybreak, in some picturesque fields in Saint Martin des Entrees, a little way outside Bayeux. They stayed there until 6 July and he noted that it had been a very pleasant period, despite the terrible reason for being there. At first, the countryside looked very pretty with green grass and orchards and fields with high hedges, but as more and more troops arrived, the land turned to dust, which hung like a cloud over them.
I paused in my writing, aware that my father’s voice spoke to me, as I turned his account into words and sentences. It was all very interesting to me, but would it be to Jack when I finally sent him the draft? He would have turned the facts into fiction and created characters to tell the tale, but I wasn’t that skilful – I knew that. I could only retell it as it was, no frills.
JACK
I received the following card during the last week in November. It showed a spaceship on a voyage.
Dear Jack,
Hallo, please note this card is meant to complement Neil Armstrong’s voyage around the cosmos, but I couldn’t find one quite suitable. I thought that the feature you ran on the series was amazing. It was in stark contrast with my sea voyages during the 70s. I visited many exciting places by cruise ships and loved the excitement of setting foot on strange soil, but how I hated being at sea with hundreds of people – being constantly entertained or fed becomes very boring. An ideal way to travel with a young family, though, I must admit. I think the most thrilling sight for me on any voyage, be it land or sea or air, was that viewed from a jumbo jet flying over Greenland. The beauty of the icebergs is something to behold, isn’t it? The journey through the imagination with you beats all other experiences, though. There are times when I think that I must have made it all up and how can it be true? Are you a figment of my imagination? No, no, no, I can reach you!
Love to you,
Marian
Then followed…
Dear Jack,
’ello, ’ello, ’ello, what ’ave we ’ere? It has been brought to my attention that you were seen exchanging information with a secret agent on Hammersmith Bridge. That would explain the picture of the wanted man that now appears in the Radio Times! Wanted by whom, I ask myself? Off the record, since learning to read the code, I consider your book Season’s Greetings to be your very sad self.
Thank you for your surprise the weekend before last – I really did enjoy your interview (anima, animus). Also, I enjoyed the way in which both the spoken and the
written word were compared. I loved finding out how writers went about writing who-done-it books, too. I wish that I were able to spy on you when you work. Are you writing? I do hope so.
I am reading my father’s notes from the Second World War. And I have read comments regarding Shakespeare being more important than any man of war, but I can assure you that every man that defended us in that war is even more important to us. If we were all dead, what good would his wonderful and profound words be? I remember Jung saying that the only way to world peace was through individuation; do you think that he meant that each person would refuse to take orders to fight? I like that idea better than Arthur Koestler’s in The Ghost in the Machine. He says that man must use his mind to control peace – by using drugs in the water system!
As you can tell, I am still exploring the library. You have opened a whole new world to me. Why did no one explain to me that Art held the key to so much? The scientist, Richard Feynman, said on Horizon that to understand the world it is necessary to have an understanding of mathematics. If that were true, I would understand nothing, but then again maybe I just didn’t have the right teacher.
Last Saturday, I tripped the light fantastic at a dinner dance held at a house that was once the home of Galsworthy. It’s a lovely old house and I delighted at the thought of such people as Soames and Irene being brought into being there. Thank you for making me appreciate so many things including poetry. Please enjoy the following sonnet: