by Mo McDonald
‘IF THE DULL SUBSTANCE OF MY FLESH WERE THOUGHT,
INJURIOUS DISTANCE SHOULD NOT STOP MY WAY;
FOR THEN, DESPITE OF SPACE, I WOULD BE BROUGHT,
FROM LIMITS FAR REMOTE, WHERE THOU DOES’T STAY.’
Bye, my Self sends love to your Self.
Marian
PS I may not be able to afford to watch your programmes much longer. Imagine, the TV licence has increased from £34 to £46 for colour and from £12 to £15 for black and white! M.
Alarm bells were going off in my head and all of a sudden I felt smothered. Thinking back about how I felt, the writing of Stephen King comes to mind with his book Misery. In it, his character, Paul Sheldon, is a novelist who is rescued from a car accident by a fan called Annie Wilkes. She is a former nurse and takes her favourite writer to her remote home to look after him. She becomes irate when she discovers that the author has killed off his heroine, Misery Chastain, in his latest book, so as to move on to a more literary fiction. Annie keeps him imprisoned in order to force his hand and makes him write another book about Misery. As King’s story develops into a horror story, Annie declares her undying love for the writer, as she tortures and abuses him. He looks on in terror as she says, ‘My God, I love you.’ I was beginning to feel that I was a victim of Marian and that her devotion was becoming far too intrusive as still more letters arrived. I knew that I had encouraged her and had drawn her close, but I had not expected her to actually read my mind. Was she my invention or was I hers? Was I still the master or just the slave?
MARIAN
I didn’t tell Jack that I was trying to write. I felt that it would sound arrogant to suggest that I could even be thinking of such a thing. So, I just found the time when I could and took comfort in being with my father’s notes of what had been a real and terrible world, so soon after the First World War, which had been supposed to end all wars. It pleased me to turn his scribbled memoir into an account of what had happened.
The relentless bombing of Caen by the British and the Americans meant that as Mick and his Battery moved ever further towards the enemy, the Germans retreated quickly from the city. However, the way ahead was made extremely difficult for the allies because of the rubble and carnage caused by the air raids. It wasn’t until 3 August 1944 that orders were received by Major Hoare – and it astounded the men. The Regiment was to go forward into country that was known to be still occupied by the enemy. The Major was said to be very angry by this, because at the same time the Grenadiers started calling for fire in the area where only the day before his men had been shooting and he pointed out that their own guns couldn’t pivot round to support them.
Fairly soon, Mick notes, it became clear that the Grenadiers were in difficulty and there were reports of panzer tanks attacking them and large numbers of Infantry. Orders were given to the Major to take an anti-attack role and he and the men were disappointed to withdraw without a single shot being fired, even though it was felt that they could have inflicted great damage on the enemy. Apparently, the Battery withdrew in perfect order even though they were under fire, with a gatepost being blown away by an 88mm shell whilst a vehicle was passing through. And there were tracers whizzing through the trees overhead. Confusion followed because they were not sure where they ought to go and they had to turn into a field in order to turn round. As soon as they were concentrated in this field, they had the ‘moaning minnies’ come down on top of them, and although they only experienced light casualties, at least four men had to be evacuated. These rockets were not very accurate but made a terrible racket.
The weary Battery had come through very well as they returned to their previous position, just north of Le Tourney. They were very tired but had only lost two vehicles, one being a water cart and the other a carrier. Mick commented that in the midst of it all they were amused to watch as one of their men called Cuckoo got stuck when trying to get into a slit trench that was too narrow for him. As the mortars were falling, a group who were trying to help him made quite an amusing spectacle when they struggled to get him in and themselves on top of him. Even in the thick of it, humour was an important factor in keeping up moral.
On the evening of that day, the 15th Scottish Division put in an attack to clear the area to the left front. They had placed their heavy machine guns in the field next door. Mick mentioned that they had been counter-attacked by infantry and when the heavy machine guns opened up, they all thought that their end had come. Soldiers who were out of their tanks leapt in and the soldiers in their tanks jumped out, and everyone seized his weapon and blasted away in every direction until it was clear what was actually happening. It was a miracle that no damage was done and even that seemed comical after the event – taking the mickey out of one another and making light of things was the only way that they could keep going.
By the next morning, the 15th Scottish Division had cleared the area and everything seemed peaceful after the last two days. In the afternoon, they, the Battery, crossed the river and moved up to St Charles de Percy, where they settled once again in a pleasant green field. Such fields had become like the Dorchester Hotel to them and Mick felt at home in the French countryside, which was not too far removed from rural Ireland. His life between the two, in London, seemed like a lifetime away as he got deeper into Normandy with its green fields and grey stone houses. However, the cold reality of war was quick to show its ugly head again as they soon came upon a large number of dead Germans in the adjoining field. Although it was, of course, kill or be killed, it brought them no pleasure to witness such a scene.
I was filled with sadness as I read his notes, but I didn’t want to tell him that I was trying to make sense of it all as he seldom spoke of the war. I was a spectator glad of his words, explaining little stories from his experience, but it was all matter of fact and I wanted to know his innermost feelings, not just his reporting. It missed out his idiosyncrasy and I wanted his Irish way as he would have explained it to me, but I was too shy to mention my writing even to my family. I felt that only proper artists like Jack could really do such things.
I knew that, when demobbed, he suffered from the most troublesome nightmares, accompanied by unbearable head pains. From then on, his dreams were haunted with him being chased by a man with a gun and the terror exhausted him on waking. It took until the end of the fifties for his blinding headaches to subside and it was clear that he had suffered post-traumatic stress, but treatment was not available at the end of the Second World War for soldiers such as him. There had been no counselling or psychological support to get back into civilian life; soldiers were returned to their families lucky to be alive, and given a new suit of clothes and a hat to equip them to get back to normal life. It must have been a hard adjustment after giving up five years to the British Army and I could only imagine the difficulties that my parents must have had getting to know each other all over again. They must have been two very different people when they started their first home together with me as a two-year-old. They must have felt like strangers.
Many cuttings were carefully saved between cellophane, along with Mick’s notes about the war. They were little notes that my mother had sent out during his time with the regiment and she had added a word here or there or underlined a sentence to emphasise her feelings. Unfortunately, they were not dated so I could only guess as to which month they were sent. I knew that he had kept them close to him, in a wallet, along with a tiny felt picture of the sacred heart of Jesus and a crucifix.
A simple note like the following said it all…
Dearest One,
Although we are parted and life seems so frightening, now I know that we will meet again. We had such dreams of a bright future together and we must never forget them. My memories are keeping me company whilst you are away. I pray for the day when we can start our life anew.
I LOVE YOU FOREVER.
Florence.
I was touched reading thi
s I had never seen the brown, aged piece of paper before looking through these notes and I could only imagine what my mother was going through in London then, when she heard that her husband was injured – no matter how slightly. She was working in an ammunition factory at the time, in Hammersmith, and she had spoken of the friendships that she formed there with the other young women who were going through the same difficulties as herself.
Another note that Mick received from his beloved Flo, as he called her, said:
Dear Love,
In these dark days of doubt and fear, the light of your love guides my way. Like a ship through the fog sails through the day. Remembering your love for me illuminates my path and cruel distances is but a shadow as I fondly hold on to the love you cast.
Plus a picture of a lighthouse standing tall waiting to guide them home from across the sea, Florence had simply added ‘from Florence, xxxxxx.’
My mother, who is such a special woman, must have been broken-hearted and her mind full of fear for him out there and for her family, who had faced terrible danger in London. I was a toddler by then and the future being so uncertain must have been unbearable.
I found it fascinating putting together my parents’ memories and I felt that I had the perfect life. My family meant everything to me, and to have Jack as a mentor and to have the luxury to attempt my own writing was so fulfilling.
JACK
I continued my pursuit of her despite my apprehension and went ahead with the planned schedule. I was captivated by the thought of her. After all this time, I still waited like a schoolboy for her next letter. Although I needed a victim, I could feel that I was as much a victim myself. It was weird, but compelling.
Dear Jack,
Thank you for finding a way, ways of talking to me. I find it hard not to smile sometimes when you get others to speak for you. I should like to read some of Conor Murphy’s work – as an Irish catholic, he understands the feel of a religious love.
Thank you once again,
Marian
I had interviewed a lively journalist about Murphy’s work and he explained how he went about it. His Irish background played a large part in his stories. I edited remarks very carefully to convey several messages from me to Marian. He explained that Murphy liked playing God by making others talk for him. He stressed how fatal it was to try to bring one’s fantasies into reality. ‘Is it always fatal?’ I asked. ‘Oh yes, always,’ he replied.
The next week was the final programme before Christmas and I talked about London writers whose work looked back over their childhood in that city and their relationship with their mothers – in particular, male authors. We looked at their reasons for using the city as a stage and their reason for writing books. I edited the show to end with singing from the film The Entertainer, to the words, something like, ‘You’ve been a grand audience, really grand. Tell me where you are tomorrow night and I’ll see you there!’ It seemed a good tease for Marian as it was the end of our season and I had a plan to meet her in the months ahead.
She responded with…
Hallo, Jack, I don’t know how to reply?
Love,
Marian
I replied in my usual formal manner through my secretary, just enough to satisfy Marian over the Christmas break.
Dear Marian,
Thanks for your letters. I am glad that the programmes still please you. We return in the New Year. I hope you have a good Christmas.
With best wishes,
Jack
Around that time, it was reported that the first case of Aids was diagnosed in the UK and some of my colleagues were consulted as to the making of a television film to alert the public to the threat of the disease. The Government wanted to make a public health advertisement regarding the terrible danger to mankind. So the year that had seen much rioting and unrest on the streets ended with the black cloud of Aids promising to invade the UK, too. It had been a bad year for the working men and women of the country and now Mother Nature was putting them under pressure, too. It had not been a good year for the human race. The provisional IRA must have delighted in the pit of doom and gloom that the British Government found themselves in.
Over the holiday break, between Christmas and New Year, I racked my brain as to how I might meet Marian without me having to step out of the frame of my work, a way to live out my fantasies while keeping to the rules that Jung laid down. Then, the idea came to me of chairing a programme for the BBC with a live audience; it was a long shot, but I had to presume that Marian would accept the challenge. It was becoming an obsession to see her again. I had teased her into thinking about the idea of me finding her, if she let me know where she might be, but in fact I would be advertising a venue at the start of the coming year, in the hope that she would find me.
My imagination was on fire despite the danger that Marian posed and the fact that I was exposed made me even more reckless; like a scientist working in the lab, my experiment had a life of its own. Its energy overpowered me with a burning consumption that was both exhilarating and exhausting. At that point in time, I was powerless to stop. As the plans got underway for the live programme, I continued to dwell on my thoughts of her and marvelled at how my art had struck an arrow, not only right into the heart of a devotee, but into her very mind, too.
I waited patiently, knowing that the Organisation was taking care of the planning and production of the live event, which would take place in the early spring of the new year. It would take time before we could maybe meet again. The BBC wanted to make a success of this new programme with a live audience, because of the further threat from ITV, who had just launched three regional stations: Central, TV South and TV South West. Back at the end of 1980, the Independent Broadcasting Authority had awarded contracts for commercial broadcasting on more ITV channels.
My diary notes were becoming more political since the summer when I had made notes of the riots. Even in my world of plenty, I was becoming more and more aware of the plight that the country was in. It would have been impossible not to be.
The start of 1982 in Britain continued with more strain on the Government, and the Welsh Army of Workers claimed the responsibility for a bomb explosion at the Birmingham HQ of Severn Trent Water. It would seem that threats were determined to come from all quarters under the Tory rule. And as if Maggie didn’t have enough to worry about, her son, Mark, disappeared during a Paris/Dakar Rally in the Sahara. He was, however, found a few days later, safe and well. Rumour had it that he got lost! My notes for January also show that the miners voted against strike action and accepted the National Coal Board offer of a 9.3 per cent pay rise, but that unemployment was over 3,000,000 for the first time since the 1930s. It was being asked how Maggie managed to sleep at night and I think that gossip had it that she needed no more than five hours a night at the best of times, anyhow.
A fresh year found me in a nervous state of expectation because a note was waiting for me from Marian saying that she would call once we were back from the holidays. Every time that an office telephone rang I thought it was for me and days passed until one afternoon my secretary switched a call through to my extension, informing me who it was. Picking up the phone, I said, ‘Hallo, Marian.’
‘Hallo,’ she replied.
‘Happy New Year to you, by the way,’ I added.
‘Thank you and to you,’ she said.
‘How do you feel now?’ I asked.
‘Just nervous. I hate ringing from a phone box. You don’t think that I should stop writing to you then?’ She sounded so serious.
‘If you feel like writing, that is fine,’ I encouraged.
‘I would hate to become…’ a pause, then she added, ‘a bore.’
‘I don’t think of you as a bore at all.’ I laughed as I said that.
‘I can’t help getting into a state sometimes,’ she apologised.
‘No,
it’s okay. Anyhow, I hope that I will hear from you again,’ I stressed.
‘All right, what are you up to?’ she questioned.
‘I am off to see the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company before they finally cease. They have been in existence, almost continuously, since 1875, singing Gilbert and Sullivan in London all that time.’
‘Gosh, I like their little ditties. I’d better go, goodbye.’ She sounded so far away now.
‘Goodbye, Marian,’ I said.
We said so little, once again, and yet it was so much, both of us knowing what went unsaid. She followed our conversation with a little note.
Dear Jack,
I am happy to have spoken to you – what a nice way to start the year. You most probably have a wooden leg and a hairpiece, but I would really miss you now and I am very cross with you for not being on air this coming weekend. Michael Fish, the weatherman, is far more faithful than you. I may have to change my affections! I meant to ask when your next novel is due out. Soon, I hope?
Thank you for being nice to me.
Love,
Marian
The new season opened with a visit to Harlem, where Mama Blu Sparks had a dancing school for the young and the old. The music was a lively affair. And the next day, a pretty card arrived of a girl at her first dance. Marian wrote: