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

by Barbara Pym

  Thursday 18 November. On Tuesday I had my second inoculation. Felt very ill in the evening and I was duty wren. Sat desolately by the fire shivering uncontrollably with an aching head and longing to be cherished. A year ago to the day Gordon said to me, sitting by the fire in Honor’s room, ‘whatever happens you mustn’t be made unhappy over this affair’.

  This is what it has come to –

  The owl in the attic which is only stuffed,

  The marble vault where one does not embrace.

  Regret that does not even call forth tears

  So dry it is, so old, so out of place.

  The darling jokes, withered as pressed flowers,

  The gay and hopeful person that was me,

  And sentimental love, the white rabbit,

  Outcast and ridiculous at Westcliff-on-Sea.

  Introducing – You in the Radio Times

  Successful, Byronic, rather second rate,

  Me in the Wrens pretending to be a sailor

  Drearily splendid, bravely accepting my fate.

  (or romantically celibate?)

  Saturday 20 November. In the afternoon went into Southend with Prue Leith Ross. A cold bright day – we walked in. Bought two vests and then went into the Odeon to see Flemish Farm – very good of its kind. We also had a selection on the organ – bathed in a luxurious glow of rose, green, blue and purple light, one could imagine anything – listening to ‘Believe me if all those endearing young charms’ – dear ruin and dear Tom Moore – and ‘Because’.… I like cinema organs, in cinemas – one must have the plush seat and coloured lights, all the right trappings.

  Sunday 21 November. Went to St Alban’s church, taking with me the prayer book and English Hymnal I brought away from there more than 2 months ago. When I got to the church heard the sound of a piano and inside a thin bald man was playing Chopin – a Nocturne – with great fervour. It seemed rather unsuitable. We had quite nice hymns and the Vicar was very jolly afterwards. When I got out of the church it was absolutely black and I had no idea where I was going, but somehow walking boldly in the middle of the road I found my way to the Hobby Horse! One step enough for me. So I sit listening to Albert Sandler, Indian Love Lyrics, and before that Vera Lynn, surrounded by Marines.

  To Henry Harvey in Stockholm Dear Henry –

  3/O B. M.C. Pym, WRNS

  Box 500,

  Southampton.

  26 May 1944

  I was so pleased to get your letter when I was in London doing my Censorship course. As you will see I have now got my Commission, and am a Third Officer in the depths of the country – although our address is Southampton we are in fact about 18 miles away and work in a large country house, with beautiful grounds full of camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons. It belongs to the Rothschilds and before that the Mitfords – Unity’s family, you know, lived there. It has quite an imposing façade, mock Palladian, with a good sweep of grass and a view over to the Isle of Wight.

  I have been here since 13 March and there is plenty of social life whether you like it or not, because, as you can imagine most of the invasion forces, both English and American are concentrated in the South and South-West and there are always far more men than women at dances. The Wrens get so many invitations they hardly know which to accept. Last night we went to a big Anglo-American dance given at the Village Hall – we were allowed to wear civilian clothes which was a pleasant change as a stiff collar and tie isn’t very comfortable for dancing. I met there a young Surgeon-Lieutenant, who was up at Magdalen 1936–1939. It was nice to talk to somebody about Oxford again – my dear, I couldn’t remember anyone I knew who’d been up at Magdalen except Oscar Wilde and your tutor Lewis. Though before I knew you I used to think you were there as I often saw you coming out on my way back from the Bodleian, some starry evening in the very early spring 1933!

  Anyway the dance wasn’t too bad – naturally I hadn’t wanted to go, I never do, would much rather have a quiet evening at home reading. And as for writing I never get a moment now, and have a fine idea for a novel about this place and all the queer people in it. Don’t think that because I mention all this social life that I have changed in the least. I don’t really like meeting and making conversation with all these people but it has to be done and naturally I manage to see the funny side of it. Last Sunday night I went for drinks with our Captain (an RN type) and some Canadian Commandos, very tough and free with Himself’s booze, to which they helped me liberally! The Captain is a great personality with a silver headed stick and a Great Dane – can be very charming when he likes. The other Navy people here are rather varied – we have some Army Captains too who are very nice on the whole – two Oxford ones among them but rather young. Still it is a bond and always makes something to talk about.

  I’ve got your letter in front of me, so will answer it whatever there is to be answered in it. I can’t remember at all what my last two letters were like – not very good, I imagine as I know in the first one I was probably feeling very depressed about Gordon – well, that is all over now and I have quite recovered from the misery I felt at the time. It took me nine months or so to recover (just like having a baby). It was really much better when I went into the Wrens last July. Change of scene and new people and now I have met Gordon again and feel quite indifferent towards him – well hardly indifferent but you know what I mean! We had a rather dramatic meeting last December, drinks at the Bolivar, behind the BBC and lunch at Pagani’s which lasted till 4. Have seen him only once since then but we write occasionally. I am sure you would like him – he has great charm, though he is hopelessly unstable to lean on, and one does want a little of that, dull though it may sound. Since then I have had one other ‘entanglement’ with a Petty Officer at Westcliff-on-Sea, where I was stationed during the winter, but I finished that off and am now more or less heart free. So it looks as if you and Jock may get your way and have me as Miss Pym all my life. I cannot believe that I am still an essential bearing in your lives – it is so long since we have met and we must all have made many other friends in these last four or five years. Still, I do think that we could quite easily slip back into our old ways if we were ever all together again, say in Oxford, preferably. We still all like the same things as we did then.

  My officer’s uniform is really smarter than my Wrens, I think. Of course it is made to measure and fits much better, has gold buttons and a tricorne hat with a rather beautiful naval badge, blue and gold and crimson. The Wrens wear little sailor hats, as I expect you know. I quite like mine and still have it at home. I imagine you would still recognise me, even in uniform. I suppose I’ve got to look older but that’s about all. How do you look these days – have you still got all your hair? Elsie seemed to look very much the same, judging by the photograph that you sent of her with the baby. Do tell her to write to me – she used to write such lovely amusing letters.

  I am vaguely depressed, waiting for things to happen as we all are now, I wish it could be over and done with – we shall know so many people in it and I suppose a good many of them won’t come back. Still, I wouldn’t be anywhere else now at this time.

  I’ve just been reading a letter from home, my parents are both very well and Hilary too – she is still in Bristol. Her husband is a Sergeant now – Air Force. He’s very intelligent. They have started writing to each other in Modern Greek, as they hope to go out there after the war. He is also very musical, as she is, so they are quite a well suited couple.

  I must stop now and go over to tea. We still get quite good food, though it isn’t always as well cooked as it might be. Anyway there’s plenty of it. Cigarettes are plentiful too – at 2/4 for 20! Drink is very short but we do manage to get it.

  Love to Elsie and the baby – Barbara

  Naples

  17 September 1944. Once before, after Christmas 1942, I started a diary because I was unhappy and it helped to write things down. Now I start because I have had a faint feeling of dissatisfaction with life here, the dull day�
��s work and empty social round and the fear that I shall never, never write that novel or do anything at all worth doing. Also a faint nostalgia for the carefree unnatural life on board the Christian Huygens and Michael (Lt. RN) and our talks and snatched kisses in the unsympathetic atmosphere of a troopship.

  This afternoon we went to Capri. It takes about 2 hours from Naples by boat. It is much bigger than I expected with great sheer cliffs in parts. The four of us hurried ashore, into the funicular which took us past vineyards with hanging bunches of grapes, also lemon trees, but the lemons seemed either green or mouldy. The usual kinds of flowers here, royal blue convolvulus with pink inside, a rich puce climbing thing and another pale blue – I don’t know the names but one must be bougainvillaea. At the top we got a car and drove to Anacapri and then walked the last bit to Axel Munthe’s villa. The usual beggar followed us – an ‘orphan’ aged about sixty. The villa is lovely inside – full of old furniture and Roman sculptures which Munthe dug up in the garden – also Roman inscriptions – I wished I could read them – ‘oh the agony of not knowing Latin!’ Very striking is a great stone head of Medusa which he has on the wall over his writing desk. Apparently he saw this head in the clear water by the old foundations of Tiberius’s bath. How wonderful to have seen it before anyone else did. What I liked best was a cool little courtyard full of these Roman pieces, white walled and peaceful with trees against the sky. I felt tears coming into my eyes and had to turn away. The peace, the beauty, the antiquity, perhaps something of the feeling I have for churchyards came over me. There is also a lovely corner overlooking the sea with a marble seat and an avenue of cypresses. A stone harpy on a corner wall so that it is silhouetted against the sky and sea. Also a large granite sphinx on which you can have a wish. I wished a simple wish that could come true.

  There is a pleasant little square in Anacapri, full of souvenirs – corals, straw hats, cameos and the little silver bells which are supposed to be lucky. Of course I bought one, being sentimental and a little superstitious. La campanella portafortuna.… I do hope it will. This place made me quite disinclined to go back to Naples.

  Naples. From the ship layers of orange and pink and biscuit coloured buildings and in the evening a mass of twinkling lights. No smells for the first week as I had a cold, but afterwards many smells and dirty bits of paper in the streets – and occasionally a good smell, incense or perfume passing a barber’s shop. The people, rather ragged and dirty but some girls nicely dressed and pretty, nearly all wearing shoes with very high wedge heels – many priests.

  18 September. I seem to be liking Naples better and often feel now the exhilaration of being in a foreign land. We worked very hard. In the evening we went on board the Sirius. Was shown all the radar apparatus which is truly fearful and wonderful. We danced on the quarter-deck to a Royal Marines Band. Highly romantic. Then a lovely trip back by the motorboat, wind and spray and stars – dark shapes of ships and the lights of Naples.

  21 September. Last night Margaret and I went out with Peter (boredom is an exquisite experience, to be savoured and analysed like old brandy and sex). We were joined by Lt. Cdr. Crabb, who used to be in Major’s Gallery in Cork Street before the war – I couldn’t think where I had seen him before. We thought we might give a surrealist exhibition here – some of these Naval types would need no alteration beyond the addition of some small incongruity like a fried egg on the shoulder or a bird nesting in the beard. We went to the Orange Grove where I pleased the waiter by knowing the Italian for carnation. Afterwards we took it in turn to shuffle round the floor with Peter. There were a lot of Americans jitterbugging and looking so terrible I began to wonder if I were seeing right. Afterwards we went to the Fleet Club and had bacon and eggs. I am always eating here. Altogether the evening passed more pleasantly than I had imagined it would. Conversation with Peter is an impossibility. At the Landing Craft Mess on Tuesday, by the way, we had a rather nice Some Tame Gazelle conversation about baths of hot volcanic mud, how you lie on a kind of slab and an attendant plasters you with mud.

  It has been pouring with rain yesterday and today and whites and macintoshes look rather silly.

  I wish Michael would write. My morale needs a little bolstering up in that direction, unless I met somebody nice here, which would do equally well, but people seem to be so dreary. They are so rare, one’s own kind.

  26 September. On Saturday afternooon I went to the Opera and saw Rigoletto. The Opera House is very luscious, red and gold and baroque with rows of boxes all round and a painted ceiling. After that to the Admiral’s cocktail party at his villa, romantically situated with a terrace overlooking the bay. A crescent moon, dark shining water below and clever artificial lighting – weak cocktails of Ischia wine and something and rather formal conversation with a beautiful Flags (seen in a dim light) and one or two others. Doriel and I went on to a party at the S.O.I.’s flat, which once belonged to some rich Italians and has all the original furnishings and even some of their hats! A lovely big table of mirror glass – portraits round the walls, with one of which I fell in love – a young man, looking like Jay in 17th century dress. Best of all is the bathroom which has paintings of Roman architecture all round the walls, bidet, w.c. and bath at one end and at the other a desk and armchairs. Dinner in their Mess, which has delightful Rex Whistler painted walls. There is also a gorgeous salon or bathroom with much white and gold and rococo or baroque ornamentation and pretty brocaded chairs. A pleasure just to sit and look at it. No need of ‘a remoter charm by thought supplied’…

  The rest of the party was dancing, drinking and talking with a good looking (if rather common) young paybob. The first person in Naples with whom I’ve had any conversation. About sex! on the balcony overlooking the bay. He has a cynical attitude to life and the technique of outrageous rudeness. He told me I would make a good mistress because I would be able to hold a man’s attention by my intelligence.

  2 October. Worked all day and in the evening wore myself out writing a long letter to Michael – but felt better for it – purged, I suppose! The trouble is I never quite know what I do feel and whether I am being sincere or not. Also I keep myself in check as I think it would be disastrous to care too much and even if it were mutual nothing could come of it. I can’t be bothered with these fleeting affairs.

  3 October. A letter from Michael in answer to the silly card I sent him from Capri – a boring, slightly facetious letter, very disappointing, but I had imagined that correspondence with him would be disillusionment. I was a little alarmed when I remembered my intimate, affectionate 8 pages, nearly in my best style, of yesterday and hastily wrote off another little note making light of it and gently hinting that I had not remained altogether faithful. Which leads to Starky (the paybob) whom I’ve seen twice since I last mentioned him. He is rude and impossible and casual, in themselves quite attractively provoking qualities and yet I have a sort of liking for him, probably I am flattered by his attention (such as it is). He is the only person in Naples I can talk to about everything and nothing, though not cultured as far as I know. His cynicism is, I think, a mask of defence, which is always intriguing. He makes me feel fiercely protective because the others don’t like him! Also he is goodlooking and tall and has nice short-sighted brown eyes – but his voice gets on my nerves. We went to a party on Friday night and now I’ve just heard that he is returning to England any minute and funnily enough I mind. Morag says I enjoy wallowing in emotion – perhaps I do, but I still mind. I’m in agony wondering if I will hear anything from him before he goes – tonight we should have gone out together and it’s now 8 o’clock and no sign and does one ever learn not to mind!

  12 October. One does learn better how to cope. Sitting on the bed at 6.15 after having pushed a note in at Navy House in the morning and seen him only a few minutes ago standing on his balcony gazing out across the Bay. Oh let him be gone and no more hankering for this, second-rate as it is. But the best Naples can offer.

  13 October. And of course in
the morning he phoned and orided me for letting sentimentality ort the better of cynicism, in my note. And invites me to go out to dinner with him tomorrow evening after our housewarming party. Oh how foolish one is!

  14 October. Began to feel sick inside at the prospect of the party, but it went off well. The Anteroom redecorated, clean and cream-washed – new pictures (in the hideous gilt frames still) – new curtains, flowers, plates of food and surprisingly strong drinks. Starky came early and I spent most of the evening with him, not managing to have a word with Rob Long (Admiral Morse’s handsome, conceited Flags). S. is no good socially, he is gauche and rather ineffectual but so sweet. We went to dinner at the Fleet Club and it was quite a successful party – we seemed rather divided into couples and this increased as the evening went on. S. and I danced and then went to his Mess when the others went home. And there was the same good thing between us as we had the evening of Mac’s party, and which I felt we had lost in our meetings since then. He goes back to the UK either on Wednesday or next week, so I suppose I shall go all through it again, though I don’t think I can run into Navy House with any more notes.

  15 October. Went to the 22 Club with Captain Heaven (Jimmy) where we bathed and sat in the sun. Then a pleasant drive round Naples – layers of white and pink houses and the bougainvillaea still out. Then tea at the RASC Mess and walked round the garden which is lovely, green and neglected with green oranges on the trees, wild cyclamen, roses, pink lilies, palms. A pleasant, nostalgic place. It got very cold at twilight. At 7 we went to the Open House to a concert. The old Grieg Piano Concerto. Gordon and this time 2 years ago and now this.