A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Barbara Pym

by Barbara Pym

  Friday 21 May. Everyone much shaken over the call-up – only I in calm of mind all passion spent!

  Saturday 22 May. I went down to the hall to look for the afternoon post and would have given anything to be able to produce a letter from George for Honor. But I couldn’t.

  Oh Love hath he done this to thee

  What shall (alas) become of me –

  At tea we talked all about Gordon’s relations and discussed various things – we also read to each other little extracts from White’s Natural History of Selborne. A nice book but one is continually reminded of the Agony of Not Knowing Latin. As Gordon said at Arkesden when we were reading Ezra Pound or Eliot.

  Sunday 23 May. Honor, Julian, Prue and I went to Weston. We had a taxi to the station and there were crowds travelling. To think, as we said to each other, that most of these people could have stayed at home if they’d wanted to!

  It was chaos on the station at Weston. Prue started to grizzle a little and Honor said, ‘All right – we’ll go straight back to Bristol!’ Idle, grown-up threat. We managed to slip away for a pint at a rather gimcrack pub with a great many red leather and chromium chairs. Lunch at Rozel [BBC Hostel]. Afterwards the beach, where we lay on my mackintosh. And then the pier with its grinding noise and everything going round and round. We put Prue on the children’s roundabout and stood watching her. In the centre there is a pillar which revolves, made of mirrors (rather distorting) some of them painted with birds and butterflies in bright colours. As I looked at this I thought out a scene for a novel or short story – the governess with the children – in the same unhappy state of mind as Honor was before Christmas and I after. Behind was the Hoop-La and the only object at all nice was a white china swan, hollow in the middle. She plays for it and a Commando seeing that she wants it wins it and gives it to her. There were a lot of Commandos there, incidentally. It was an exhausting day and we had to come home by bus which meant a lot of walking and waiting. Still there was beer and cold beef and chips at the end of it, then a bath and bed.

  Monday 24 May. A very wet day. On such a day what is more depressing than the cloakroom at the Censorship – cold and vault-like anyway, but hung with dripping mackintoshes, stockings trying to get dry on the cold radiators etc. Honor had cooked a lovely supper, shepherd’s pie and rhubarb with sponge on the top. Mr Slope proposing to Eleanor Bold in Barchester Towers [BBC radio] was very nice.

  Tuesday 25 May. Worked drearily hard. Honor seemed low at teatime – it is time she heard from George – that he is all right after the fighting. It is the one thing I want at the moment – that she should have a letter. It’s so awful not being able to comfort a person you love – all I could do was vain words, half a bottle of Drene and a large sheet of blotting paper I had got from the office. Hilary came back and later we were all quite merry and had a large supper of omelette (very good, made by me) and chips. I washed my hair. We listened to V. S. Pritchett’s programme about Dostoevsky and Turgenev (Stephen Potter produced) – an excellent programme. Good to listen to something really exciting that one couldn’t possibly have written oneself. There was a phrase about nobody having a business to turn away from things in life – one must feel things to the marrow of one’s bones. (I wish I could put it better). Anyway it was good. Gordon’s play tomorrow. We rather dread it.

  Wednesday 26 May. Honor had a letter from George, so he is all right. With that worry off my mind I sunk low in myself and spent rather a gloomy day – being rather depressed and yet sharp with myself writing snappy comments on my blotting paper like ‘Snap out of it’ and ‘Testing Time’ – all the time. At tea time I wept rather decorously in my room. Then entered the kitchen full of people – consciously bracing myself, eyes all bathed in cold water. Sally had a child to tea. I had some remains, scones and brandy snaps and cherries with an impossible number of stones.

  I prepared a cold supper – asparagus, hardboiled egg, potato salad etc. Honor and I were rather tense and nervous about Gordon’s play. I knitted feverishly – the sleeves of my black jumper. The time came. It was exciting and funny and clever and rather embarrassing. None of it really applicable to me. The bit of La Rochefoucauld he once quoted to me in a letter came in – how little the beginning of love is in our power, therefore you shouldn’t blame your lover or mistress when it ends and all that. I was very excited and yet depressed after it and couldn’t get to sleep for quite a long time. I began thinking of a play I would write.

  Thursday 27 May. Received from the WRNS a summons to a selection board on Monday next – so that may mean that I’m being considered for a commission in Censorship. Very excited and agitated and still brooding over the play.

  After supper I went to have coffee with Mrs Green and Inky Woodward – in Inky’s flat at the Paragon. I wore the blue-green dress with a full skirt that I made specially for Christmas and haven’t worn since – and rode, down Sion Hill by the Rocks and the Portcullis – where he said ‘My bright and shining Ba’ and the bridge was lovely in the twilight and horrid people sat in the window of the Rocks and I was filled with indescribable nostalgia and love for him. Our Sunday morning drinks and talks about food and Roman Catholicism and Oxford and Cambridge and the September evening when we discussed the Barbellion passage [Journal of a Disappointed Man] we both like – about the dead haunting the places where they have been happy.…

  It was fun at Inky’s. She told me all about the WRNS. I tried on her uniform and look Divine in it!

  Saturday 29 May. Lovely hot day. In the afternoon Honor and I scrubbed her carpet and floor (good practice for me). It looked wonderful, when we had finished we could talk of nothing else. We were very tired at the end of it and scrubbed in our dreams.

  Monday 31 May. Went to London for my Selection Board. Had lunch with dreary people – myself no less dreary than any of them.

  The journey was uneventful and went quite quickly. Two impressions – sheets of ox-eye daisies growing by the railway and a patch of ground full of bird-baths and dainty garden statues. Yes, that dwarf with the broken head, that solid unfluffy stone rabbit might well have been among them.

  London was bright and pleasant – streets crowded and shops full of nice things. It makes me intolerably sad to go there – although I have now been three times since Gordon and I parted. We took a taxi to WRNS Headquarters and had a long gossip with Betty Rankin. I was then shown into a room where about seven or eight girls – all Wrens – were waiting for the Selection Board. It was most nerve-racking as I was last of all and although my interview was for 5.10 I didn’t get in till about 5.50. It was a real War of Nerves atmosphere – we sat round in a bare dingy room with nothing to read and the windows half blacked out. Each candidate knew whether she had passed or not as she came out. When they were ready for the next victim they rang a piercing bell which made everyone jump. I felt nervous and quite erschöpft and was conscious that my face had got beyond powdering and needed re-doing from the beginning. I thought for a moment – all this is quite fantastic, I’ve no need to be afraid. But then it occurred to me that everyone else was taking it seriously therefore I must too, as I was aiming to be part of it.

  My turn came. There were three Wren officers sitting at a table – one grey-haired and soignée, another motherly and wearing a hairnet, and the third dark and massive and ominously silent. I saw her writing something on a piece of paper at the end. They asked me various general questions – why I wanted to join the WRNS – whether I liked Censorship etc. and were very nice. But at the end of it I wasn’t very much the wiser. They said they would let me know in a day or two which rather flattened me, as I had hoped I might know straight away. So now more waiting – I almost felt I would rather be in the ranks as the lowest of the low, though to fail in anything is rather humiliating and I’ve had enough failures lately. After it was all over I felt exhausted and depressed and would have given the rest of my life for the comfort of Gordon and a drink with him. As it was I staggered unthinking into the first train I saw at St J
ames’s Park and then realised that I wasn’t really sure how to get to Gunnersbury. So at Victoria I got out and sat on a seat and meditated and smoked and finally asked an official.

  And finally I arrived [at Kew] – Sybil was there, then Rosemary and they were kind and sweet. It was bliss to relax and drink beer and eat and flop into the green sheets – wearing my new blue satin nightdress – my body spread-eagled like a corpse. It was a very hot night – at about 2 a.m. the sirens went and there was gunfire in the distance. I lay awake thinking of Gordon, wondering where he was and if he was awake and longing hopelessly for him and panic came over me at what I had done and the life that was before me. But I thought – well this is the worst time to think of things. Everything seems gloomy and dark when you’re lying awake in the middle of the night. One day, perhaps quite soon – it will be better.

  After Christmas II

  8 June. London. In large shops full of women I always feel safe from Gordon. But in the street, especially round Oxford Circus, I must be careful!

  I had a happy wandering in the shops. It was a hot sunny day. I went into Zwemmers and bought a volume of Rilke – the young man there is growing older. His hair is receding. I remember the first time I saw him – it was at the Exhibition of Picasso’s Guernica in the winter of 1938 – nearly five years then. And since Guernica, Rotterdam, Belgrade, Coventry, Athens – just like a poem by one of our young modern poets. But even they aren’t so young now.

  I took a taxi to 271 High Holborn for my interview at 3. It is a large grey non-committal looking building called Princeton House. I went in a lift to the 8th floor, and was deposited in front of a pair of swing doors. Inside behold, a dear, familiar scene – tables of censors – so much like our office except that some of them were Wrens and there were one or two naval officers padding about. I was put to wait by an open window looking out on to city roofs. I was given a cup of tea which was most welcome as I was very thirsty. Then I had my interview with First Officer Salmond – a charming person with curly hair and a faint Scots accent. Apparently I must serve three months in the ranks and after that I am pretty sure of my commission, provided I behave myself. I was very pleased and happy with this interview – very different from last week – and am now longing to be called. I had a discreet tea in Marshall’s, wandered on to Selfridge’s and bought a few things then took a taxi to Paddington to get the 6.30.

  Wednesday 9 June. Bristol. In the evening we went to the Theatre Royal to see Bridie’s play Susannah and the Elders. Very amusing. It’s curious how unreal a play seems at first but how you soon get into it. It really does take you out of yourself as they say. We had some beer in the interval and ate a whole bar of Fry’s sandwich each! I wore the turquoise dress I made for Gordon at Christmas with a grey jacket. The theatre is charming inside – green and gold with nice slender pillars and designs – masks etc. It was a lovely evening.

  Whitsuntide. 12–14 June. Hilary and I got a train to Compton and from there cycled to the cottage [belonging to Hilary and Sandy], which is literally in the middle of the downs and has a pretty overgrown garden full of delphiniums. Tom Marriner was there and had started to get lunch. We had sausages and potatoes and salad. Later George [Murr] came bringing a ham and a chicken – we had the chicken on Sunday. Baptista disembowelled it and I watched her. It was most delicious. I slept a good deal and felt quite happy but rather remote and lonely. One feels so without a chap especially when one has had one. A nice lump of misery which goes everywhere like a dog. Isolation. Still, I wasn’t unhappy. But I couldn’t help thinking how nice such a place would be with Gordon.

  Tuesday 15 June. In the evening Honor told me about a communication in which Gordon has apparently demanded the big Armchair in the sitting room, so of course that at once suggested Eliza Cook and

  I love it, I love it, and who shall dare

  To chide me for loving that old armchair.

  But oh darling – can my love stand this. May it not be the beginning of the end. Could it be because of an armchair that I first began to fall out of love with you! But of course one doesn’t fall – it’s a slow wrenching away painful at once, afterwards just sad and dreary. Or so I imagine. It hasn’t happened yet.

  Wednesday 16 June. Once – a few days ago – I dreamed that when a certain period was up – six months I believe – Gordon wrote to me and suggested that we should go on again, but what as I never knew – I woke up before that was made clear. Well I’m afraid it won’t be six months – because that’s less than a fortnight from now. He seems to be rather sticky about the allowance for the children – that’s the thing that maddens me most about him.

  Thursday 17 June. At supper had to fight a little pang of jealousy when Honor talked about ringing him up. Must go now and see if the boiler is in because it is our bath night. So there is romance and wild longing and death in life the days that are no more all in the chaos of the Palmers’ kitchen. My clerihew – made this evening.

  BARTOK

  is my stumbling block.

  I am in some doubt

  As to what he is talking about.

  Julian found some rubber objects in the Gorge and told Honor what they were used for.

  I have sunk very low. I emptied tea leaves out of the window.

  Sunday 20 June. Surely it is the height of decadence to listen to Richard Strauss before lunch on a Sunday morning. As I am doing now – Scott Goddard doing a programme about Strauss’s Don Quixote. Such lovely music, rich, exciting – cold shivers of delight – breezes of spring (in the Banbury Road)! – like the Rosenkavalier waltz. Earlier in the day I chopped off some of my hair and gave myself a new style, curled up all round. The idea is for it to look shorter and neater.

  Oh Coppice back kitchen full of kisses and jokes and tears – and the blackcurrants are ripening.

  Tuesday 22 June. Ann lent me Cocktails at Six [one of Gordon’s novels] which I tried to read at Arkesden. But I can’t get up any interest in it – so brittle and unreal.

  Thursday 24 June. Well, it came this morning. And when it does come, it’s like Love – make no mistake about it, you know. A long envelope with a railway warrant Bristol to Rochester (Single, this time there is No Return). Also a list of clothes to be taken. No food or drink (not the smallest of double gins) to be taken there. I am to go on July 7th. My feelings are a little mixed but mostly I am excited and glad. Everyone at the office very nice. It was a hot day, hard to work. In the afternoon we had a lecture, very interesting, then our birthday tea party on the balcony. The table was decorated with flowers, wild strawberries and cakes to eat. It was gloriously sunny.

  Tea in the garden when I got home – did some rather spectacular weeding among the roses – enormous things two or three feet high and even a potato plant. Pleasant evening with Honor – very few of these left now – how I shall miss her. I wonder what Gordon will say.

  Saturday 26 June. Oh dear, oh dear. I’m afraid I had a bad outburst this morning – in the kitchen. Honor advised me to forget Gordon (I had been lamenting that we had no news of him) and then it suddenly all came over me and I had a good weep all over Honor and didn’t start for work till after nine!

  I picked a lot of raspberries and went over the whole Gordon situation. I feel at the moment that I still love him as much as ever and nothing will alter that except meeting somebody else. It is no use worrying about his feelings because even if they were still the same I shouldn’t want him to do anything about it (though I long for just some word of comfort before I go into the Wrens).

  Sunday 27 June. My last Sunday at the Coppice and there was a sweetness and sadness about everything and everybody. Breakfast in the kitchen, tea on the grass after lunch and in the evening a supper for me and my health drunk in cider. Looking through a book of Honor’s press cuttings I came across the wedding picture of her and Gordon – the two people I love best in the world. One can’t help feeling sad and sentimental. Gordon looks so young and so absurdly like Julian.

  This even
ing heard the Epilogue [BBC radio] – the parable of the Prodigal Son, which I love, and we are now listening to a programme about Gluck.

  Monday 28 June. My last afternoon and so hot and airless, there was an extremely good looking Air Force officer in attendance most of the day. Got home and tea under the beech trees with Honor and the children – read our novels for a bit. Listened to some of the Brahms Piano Concerto (early one) on the gramophone. Hearing that lovely rounded melody in the first movement, I thought, yes it could be all right. There might be somebody else – it’s just possible. He must like music and, if possible, Matthew Arnold, and have a ridiculous sense of humour.

  Tuesday 29 June. Work as usual in the morning and I was even able to concentrate on all the usual things as I had all time before me. At about 12 I started to say goodbyes which was very sad and everyone was so nice. Well at least I have got on with people and made friends – that’s something. I was given a lovely extravagant box of talcum powder, a nice expensive gift I would never buy for myself and therefore all the nicer to have.

  Trying not to feel sad, though I’m excited too – worrying now about what clothes to take!

  Wednesday 30 June. Had a very pleasant day at the Coppice. Listened to Dick’s broadcast and Honor doing bits in Hilary’s Unicorn programme [for schools]. Very nice though of course it didn’t sound a bit like my Honor. I did a lot of clearing up and packed a suitcase of clothes to take home. Gave Prue my wreath of flowers I got in Salzburg and Honor the scarf with Edelweiss from Dresden.

  Friday 2 July. Oswestry. Did more tidying and packed a large suitcase to come home.