Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  5 February

  Grace came today to relieve me and I must say seemed rather grudging about it. She has lived here long enough to be thoroughly acquainted with how the household runs, but affected not to know where things are kept though it is barely three months since she moved out. Florence is not happy about my departure. We get on well and she trusts me more than she does Grace, I think. Grace is very distracted and obsessed with her own appearance, forever looking in mirrors and twiddling her golden locks. She says she can’t get time off work so can only cover this weekend. Charles’s mother is coming on Monday, as well as the help he has hired.

  12 February

  Tilda has asked me to be godmother to the girl twin, who as yet has no name, though the boy is to be Toby. I can hardly refuse, though I long ago lost any religious faith as she perfectly well knows. I was very surprised she asked me, in view of her opinion, and that of Charles, of my relationship with Robert. Surely I am not suitable, from every point of view. But she has asked me and maybe this is a sort of olive branch and so I feel I should agree. After all, being a godmother doesn’t mean much when I am already the child’s aunt and always would look out for her.

  21 February

  I really, truly feel I would not be Tilda for anything. Her babies have never been easy, and these twins are the worst of the lot. What with their incessant crying and Jack choosing this time to have chickenpox, and Florence sulky and difficult, Tilda’s life is hell. I’ve never been so glad to get out of that house and back to my quiet home and Robert and the pleasures of just being two adults.

  2 March

  The girl twin is to be named after Mother. She is so sweet. She was mercifully quiet today at her christening, whereas Toby cried, while she looked up at me so very gravely as I held her in my arms. I wonder if Constance will turn out to look like Mother as well as bearing her name. It is too early to tell, but I fancy her eyes are shaped like Mother’s, very large for such a tiny baby, whereas Toby’s are mere pinpricks. Robert observed when I came home that I seemed dreamy. That was the word he used, dreamy. I said it was because I was feeling sentimental, thinking about Constance and Toby.

  8 March

  I did something odd today. I’d read in the News Chronicle about an organisation called Mass-Observation which has been set up by three men, to record how ordinary people live. People are invited to record their day in detail for one day in a month, every month, and send in their account. The point is to build up a picture of our society. It appeals to me so much. There is no money involved, no payment, and no one need know where you live if you don’t want to reveal it. After all, what are my diaries but a record of the life of an ordinary woman. So I wrote off to the address and I am to send my first report next week. I have fixed on a Wednesday to do it. Robert is very amused by it. He says he can’t imagine of what use such reports could ever be, and that everyone will just make things up to make their report interesting. I said they won’t, or anyway I won’t. I love to know about people’s routines and habits and when I am on a bus or train I am always speculating about the other passengers and how their days go. Robert said such speculation never enters his head. Well, I said, that is the difference between us, and we left it at that. But I am looking forward to being a Mass Observer whatever he thinks.

  *

  It is true that Millicent is intensely curious about strangers and that her diaries are full of sometimes quite minutely detailed observations and speculations. She is particularly interested in people she sits beside in buses, and often describes them right down to the condition of their fingernails or the design on a tie. Whether all this went into the stories she wrote at the period when she was working for Matthew Taylor is impossible to say, since none of them have survived, but I suspect she tried to make use of these vignettes in a creative way.

  *

  15 March

  My first report as a Mass Observer. It was so much more difficult to do than I had imagined, not at all like writing in this diary. Here, I can put what I like, and I don’t need to write down exactly what I have done or explain things. This was the problem with my MO report, what to put in and what to leave out. No real guidelines have been given. But it was quite exciting too, to think that what is so ordinary to me might seem significant to someone else, and that without knowing it I might fit into a bigger picture. I made notes all day so that I would not forget. I didn’t know how to refer to Robert, or whether to explain about him, but decided explanations, which would be so complicated, were not necessary, so I’ve just called him my friend, and whoever reads the report can put two and two together. I stuck mainly to what I did rather than how I felt. It was a busy day too, with three house calls to make and a meeting with a Child Protection Officer at the Town Hall. I finished writing it all up in bed, with Robert watching and making fun of me, but I didn’t care. He says now, just as I’ve finished, that I must have been a very serious student. So I was, I said, and he must have been, too. He says he got by on brains alone.

  30 April

  All London’s busmen are on strike, for more pay. I had to walk miles and was late for every appointment, and I had a great many of them today as luck would have it. I think I will buy a car. I have always wanted a car. Robert says I don’t need one, that his does for both of us, but his is a clapped-out old Hillman and I rarely get the chance to drive it. He says cars are not necessary in London and that he only has one because he had it in Liverpool and was not going to leave it with Doreen who couldn’t drive anyway. But I would like a neat little car of my own and I can afford it. Robert says he forgets I am a rich woman. Not true, but I suppose, thanks to Mother, or rather to Harold, compared to him I am rich (especially when some of his money goes every month to Doreen). I think Robert thinks it is rather awful for me not to have earned my house. I should feel guilty, especially in the light of the poverty I see every day, but I don’t. I am just glad of it, and thankful.

  14 May

  Grace called. Haven’t seen her in ages. She was looking very sophisticated, wearing the most beautiful dress, a gauze-like thing, floral, with a tie neck, and it swirled around her delightfully as she moved. Just an old thing she’d made herself, she said. I suspected she must have come for some reason and I was right. She has been offered a place in a fashion house in Paris and can’t decide whether to take it and wanted to discuss it. She says Tilda is adamantly against her accepting, pointing out that she knows not a word of French and that she is so nicely settled in London and has friends and family around her and will know no one in Paris. But Grace thinks that there is a little bit of self-interest in Tilda’s discouragement because Grace has been helping a lot with the children at the weekends. I said, if I were her, I would take the job. She will soon pick up French, and Paris is the place for fashion and she would be a fool to turn it down. After all, if she doesn’t like it she can come back and her Parisian experience will stand her in good stead.

  A friend has warned her that the political situation in Europe is dangerous and she asked me what I thought. Surely France is safe enough. Pessimists have been moaning for ages now that another war is coming, but it never does, thank goodness, and I for one don’t believe it will. Mother would be so proud of what a success Grace is, and in the fashion business, which she could understand, but if Mother were alive she wouldn’t want her little darling going to Paris, and would side with Tilda. I wish Grace could meet Robert and know about him. I still haven’t told her. She thinks I am a lonely spinster. It is strange that I never see my brothers, or even hear from them much. Esther does all the communicating for George, and Alfred sometimes turns up like a bad penny, but as for Albert and Michael I hardly know them. Grace is quite close to Michael. She says he is very shy and has a sweet girlfriend but he misses Mother dreadfully.

  15 May

  Robert alarmed me this evening by saying that for Grace to go to work in Paris would be a very bad idea because Europe is going to erupt. Those were his words, Europe will erupt. I became
cross and asked him how he could be so sure. He reads the newspapers and says it is obvious. I suppose I don’t read them properly, not since I lived with Daphne, when I tried to. I skip the long political articles, it is true. Should I pass this prediction on to Grace?

  *

  Whether she did or not she doesn’t say, but the question of what might be about to happen in Europe comes up again during discussions with Robert as to where they should go on holiday. To Millicent’s annoyance, he insists they must stay in Britain, and suggests touring in Scotland, saying he would like to visit Arran, where his mother’s family (she was a Mackay) came from. This Scottish holiday takes place in September and to Millicent’s surprise is a great success. It doesn’t rain at all and she loves Arran and writes long diary entries describing the landscape. Robert is well up on Scottish history and gives her entertaining lectures as they drive round the north-west coast, going across first to Arran and then Skye, and then back down the north-east. They register as Mr and Mrs Rigg in hotels and bed-and-breakfast places, and she wears a ring in order to look authentic. She admits to her diary that she enjoys the pretence and finds it extremely satisfying. Robert recognises this and says he knows she’s deluding herself when she vows she doesn’t care about being married. This leads to a great row on the last night of their holiday – the diary entry goes on for pages and is very repetitious – but once it is over, and they are back in London, Robert proposes a scheme to persuade Doreen to divorce him.

  *

  2 October

  I still have not written to Robert’s wife, as he wants me to. I keep turning the idea over and over in my mind and it doesn’t seem right. I am not the sort of person who begs: I am too proud. And though I have told white lies, as everyone has, I have never told a big, serious lie. I am superstitious about it too. If I pretend to be pregnant I might fall pregnant, it is tempting fate. But I do want Robert to be divorced. He is right, it felt so much better to be married when we pretended to be. I wouldn’t mind in the least being cited in a divorce. I expect to be. It would be very easy and straightforward for Doreen to divorce Robert. I suppose I will write what Robert suggests, but I am fearful about it.

  *

  Her fears were justified. She writes to Doreen later that month (on a Mass-Observation report day, but she says she doesn’t mention the letter in her report) and, after a wait of nearly a month, receives a reply not from Doreen herself but from a solicitor. Mrs Rigg, he writes, will never agree to a divorce, it being against her religious convictions, and she is outraged to have been written to by a woman who is, in her opinion, little better than a whore. If she chooses to indulge in carnal sin with a married man and become pregnant that is her own fault and Mrs Rigg pities the bastard she will give birth to. The letter leaves Millicent trembling.

  *

  1 December

  So that is that. Unless Doreen dies, and I wish she would, however dreadful it is to wish that, Robert and I can never marry and, if I did have a baby, it would be born a bastard. Sometimes I think of seeking Doreen out and confronting her but it would only, most probably, lead to an ugly scene. I would like to see what she is like, though, what she looks like. I expect she is pretty. I asked Robert once and he frowned crossly, and said prettiness had had very little to do with it. The point was Doreen had been there, he hardly knew any other girls and when he came back from France the idea of marrying and having a home of his own and settling into domesticity was very attractive. I suppose I can understand that. I have no choice. I have to.

  8 December

  Snapped out of my low spirits by the arrival of an almost illiterate letter from Ethel, my sister-in-law, Alfred’s wife. Alfred has left her and she wonders if I know where he is. Heavens, I have rarely known where Alfred is, and haven’t the least idea now. I don’t know why Ethel wrote to me of all people, or even how she found my address. Since we’ve never met I only know what I do know about her, and that’s precious little, from Grace and poor Mother. Went round to Tilda’s after work and it turned out that she had had the same letter. She’s disgusted with Alfred, says he always was irresponsible and that Father would be turning in his grave. Next thing, Tilda said, is that Ethel, whom of course she has not met either, will turn up with her child (neither of us could remember his name, which is awful) on her doorstep. Neither of us can decide what to write back, but we must, if just to make it clear that, though Alfred may be our brother, we have no sort of contact with him. Poor Ethel, though. At least she has her family, but I expect they are feeling quite vengeful towards Alfred. What can he be thinking of, deserting his wife and child?

  14 December

  Grace has definitely made up her mind to accept that offer in Paris and goes to start there immediately New Year is over. Robert and Charles and almost all the men of her acquaintance say she is foolish but I think it is a great opportunity and I am delighted for her. Paris is not far, Grace could easily come home. She is going for Christmas to Esther’s and George’s, feeling that she should, and then she will spend New Year with Tilda, and I will see her to say bon voyage. I think of myself at 20 and cannot help admiring Grace, who has such a clear idea of what she wants to do and has known how to set about it and has stuck to her last job and done well.

  18 December

  Last day at work, and a wretched one. We have a little money to give to our poorest families, an allowance made by the council in what Robert sarcastically calls their munificence, and today we spent it on small luxuries for the children – chocolate and jars of honey and bottles of pop and biscuits. We made up parcels in the office, wrapping each one in coloured paper, and then we took them round the Buildings. I felt uncomfortable about it from the beginning – it was so like playing some kind of hateful Lady Bountiful – and my feelings of distaste for the task grew stronger once we were delivering what were really rather pathetic gifts. It was painful to see the excitement of the children, especially the O’Briens, eight of them tearing at the paper and snatching the few chocolates and fighting over the biscuits. We’d said to Mrs O’Brien it was a little Christmas parcel to keep for the day so that the children would have something to open. Something to open? she echoed and started to laugh and then grew angry and positively threw the parcel onto the floor. And of course the children pounced. She said nothing more, but once they had eaten everything, even the honey, just straight out of the jar on their filthy fingers, sucking them, she started to cry. She didn’t need to say why – Christmas is such an insult to families like the O’Briens, living in those dreadful rooms with no hope for the future. Mrs O’Brien isn’t even one of the feckless ones. She tries hard but she has too much to cope with. While we were there the priest came and I must say that if nothing else his arrival had a magical effect on the children who were in awe of him and quietened down at once. As we left, he was getting them to say a prayer of thanks for their good fortune in being given a present and they were actually kneeling among the tattered remnants of the paper and the empty pop bottles and scrunched-up biscuit wrappers.

  4 January 1938

  Said goodbye to Grace. She promised to keep in close touch, but I wonder if she will have time never mind the desire when her life will be so different, and I don’t expect to hear from her for a while. It’s been good seeing her these last few days and I made the big decision to disobey Tilda and introduce her to Robert. Well, she is going to Paris, and is a sophisticated woman of the world now and not a child who could be influenced, and I thought why on earth should I let her go abroad not knowing the man her sister loves and with whom she has been living for more than two whole years, and whom she will be with for the rest of her life? I felt defiant about it, and so I invited Grace to tea and told her everything. Then she met Robert and liked him very much, or so she said. Robert liked her too. He says she has an air of me about her, which I cannot see at all, though others have said the same, but he added that she does not look like me. Of course she doesn’t, I replied, she is so elegant, for a start, and I am not. R
obert said I could be if I chose, which for some reason irritated me and I snapped back at him, Oh, you like elegant women, do you? He just nodded. I said elegance was not important beside integrity, and Robert laughed and said I was growing pompous in my old age. I was so furious I slammed out of the room, not really knowing which insult had hurt more. Compared to Grace, of course, I am old. It can’t be denied. Robert’s jibe reminded me of what Jack had asked me at Christmas dinner: Are you very old, Aunt Millicent? And I’d replied I was only nearly middling old, which confused him and made everyone laugh. But to Jack everyone over the age of 12 or so is old. He turned immediately to Charles’s mother, his grandmother, and said to her that she was old old, wasn’t she, and Mrs Routledge, who is about 70, nodded and said that soon she would be the very oldest of old, and Jack was satisfied. The twins started screaming for their bottles at that stage and Tilda sighed and said she felt the oldest of old already. I am not surprised. She has been aged terribly by their birth. Beside Tilda, I feel young.

  30 January

  Such drama! Alfred appeared on our doorstep last night. It was a filthy night, raining hard and bitterly cold, and Robert and I were sitting over the fire reading and sipping hot toddies for our colds when the bell went. We looked at each other in surprise. It was after ten and we were not expecting any caller and rarely would anyone we know come round at such an hour. Then the bell went again, accompanied by a banging on the door. I began to think something terrible had happened and we were needed urgently somewhere. When Robert opened the door a man almost fell into the hall. Robert attempted to stop him and then I heard my own name called. It was Alfred. He was absolutely soaked and shivering with cold and the first job was to get him dry and warm. I had to introduce Robert of course, as ‘my friend’, for how else can I describe him to those who do not know, and I saw his eyes flicker as he worked out what this might mean, and how it might be used to his advantage. I was quite sharp with him. He may be my brother but he is also a man who has left his wife and child. I said, Well, Alfred, what is all this, what have you been doing? He then began on the hard luck story of all hard luck stories and I did not believe a word of it. When he had finished his sob-story I asked, What about your wife? She wrote to me, and to Tilda. He coloured a little, obviously taken by surprise, but launched into another saga. Robert and I exchanged glances and had no need to say anything. Then Robert went to bed, in his own flat, which I could see did not fool Alfred. I don’t know how we will get rid of him.