So I Have Thought of You

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  I too went up to Oxford (not the same day) to try and see Uncle Rawle, but just missed him, very irritating, William’s flat was empty except for boxes of old shoes and torn up engagement books from which (spy, spy) I managed to find out their next telephone number. On the way back one of my shoes fell off just as I was getting into the train – it fell right under the train – but just before we started a kindly man managed to hook it up with his umbrella – I was so grateful – but his wife, in a white plastic hat, seemed rather annoyed. How could I have arrived in London with only one shoe?

  Thankyou very much for the photos, which have just arrived but we haven’t had time yet to study them as they deserve.

  I will write again and give you details of your train to Cornwall &c. I quite agree it’s better to find out these things in advance! (and arrive at the station one and a half hours early!)

  I got 2 bathtowels at the Sales but the clothes are hopelessly expensive – I’ll have to go on dressmaking! No lace for me, dear, thankyou – it was granny you know who liked lace, not me!

  much love

  Ma X

  [Poynders Gardens]

  10 August [1969]

  Dearest Ria,

  I think your best train to Rachel’s* will be to Saltash which is 9 miles away. There are many more trains to Plymouth which is 14 miles away but this seems rather far to ask her to fetch you. The Saltash train leaves Paddington at 12.30 p.m. and you get in at 16.55 (cost 62 shillings each way). There are earlier ones but it might be a strain catching them! Tina will still be in London – is going down to Jinnie’s later. I will write to Rachel and tell her you are coming on this train and I’m sure all will be well as after all Liz can meet the train if Rachel is busy.

  Very hot here. Tina and Francesca were here on Saturday and we just lay about in heaps. There is a little air on the terrazzo, where our geraniums are now growing strongly. Hippies have invaded the centre of London and are sleeping out in Piccadilly Circus, stealing milk off the doorsteps. The sky is a sort of leaden pink.

  Just been up to Grove Cottage – Grandpa very frail in his white linen suit and says he can just about manage to walk 50 yards a day – no more. It turns out William and Mary Jane are going to get married twice – once in a Catholic church and once in a C. of E. church. Surely we shan’t go to both ceremonies?

  Rawle is much better and is writing a book.

  I’m still altering my summer dresses for the holiday – the blue one with daisies (which I don’t suppose you remember) fitted quite well in the end – I took Daddy to the C and A and he got a decent pair of khaki trousers. Unluckily he bought a pair of hippy Chinese pyjamas with three-quarter legs (you couldn’t tell this from the packet) and Tina and I had great difficulty in making him take them back.

  Thankyou again for the lovely letters – they’re all by my bedside. It seems ages since I saw you but I’m so glad it’s all such fun –

  much love Mum

  [postcard from Istanbul]

  19 August [1969]

  Hope you had a good journey home and are comfortable in most unglamorous Clapham! We’ve forgotten the strings of the li-lo! This came of my losing my list, but otherwise all is well, a lovely breeze and temp: of 100 on the beach (less than Cordoba though!) sitting under fig-trees and acacias – Daddy in new M & S finery.

  All our love Mum X

  Beach Hotel

  Attakoy

  Thursday [1969]

  Dearest Ria,

  I think it is really better to write to you at the flat as I am not sure how long you are at Rachel’s and the post is hopeless here. I’m going to try and put different things from my letter to Tina if I can. Note I’m using the lines supplied by my ‘Winfield’ air-mail paper, like Valpy, so as to write really nicely!

  Very hot here but nice breeze from the sea – fish-laden near fish-market – we are sightseeing keenly, but not in luxury as you did – we have been to Hagia Sophia which is huge inside, I don’t know how these buildings with domes, mosques and Byzantine churches, were built so high, much higher than cathedrals and yet they’re strong, because you go up to the galleries up a ramp inside the walls, broad enough to drive a horse and cart, and the floors of the gallery are solid marble, very cool if you take your shoes off, wonderful carving, but the rotten Turks have broken a lot of the crosses off. Marvellous mosaics in gold and colours, with John the Baptist’s beard waving in 7 shades of brown. And Ria the Bazaars are so wonderful but Daddy’s not keen on them, naturally, and I’ve no money and I suppose we couldn’t get the stuff home anyway, but there are piles and piles of Roman antiques, embroidered kaftans, sheepskin coats – but alas the prices have gone up – still low by Kings Road standards, but too much for me – they are wistfully fingered by hippies of whom there are large numbers in the smelly picturesque old quarters. They try and sit on the edge of the cobbled streets, but are either knocked off by beggars who want to sit down themselves or knocked sideways by lorries and donkeys.

  We’re doing quite well about cafés because of course they don’t sell glog, but real lemonade, which is nice, and Turkish coffee in those little brass things, and large hot rolls with fried eggs in them. We get stale rolls of course at the Beach Hotel, but there is very good bread baked in ovens in the street. Daddy walks about in thick socks and shoes as this is what they did in the army! He’s very good with the map though.

  The Poly-Lunns are nice and superior, but not too pleased as they daren’t risk the Turkish transport and are stuck in the Beach Hotel, except for costly expeditions. However tonight they’re going on a Night Life tour, with a cocktail at the Istanbul Hilton!

  Much Love, longing to see you and hear all news X Ma.

  (At last I’ve heard a muezzin calling to prayer!)

  [postcard addressed to the Misses Fitzgerald]

  26 August [1969]

  Thought you might like this peacock. We’re looking forward so much to seeing you Tues: though as I have to go straight to work I’m a bit worried as to how Daddy will get back with all the luggage – I’m afraid he’ll collapse on arrival! Went to a yoghurt parlour and pilgrimage mosque yesterday – on to Izmir tonight. (Travel description ends here) much love Ma

  The Abbey

  Iona

  Friday [1970]

  Dearest Maria,

  This is my last day in this lovely place – am sitting looking at the sea which is a kind of silvery colour, locked in by islands, with 2 white doves and a sheep staring at me from about a yard away: I’m sitting on a bench on the seaward side of the Abbey – I ought to be at meditation, but am writing to you instead. Tomorrow I have to catch the ferry – an open boat to Mull, and then the ferry to Oban, a lovely crossing among the Inner Hebrides, a bus across Scotland to Edinburgh and then the night train to Clapham – I shall arrive before the underground opens I fear.

  Letter from Daddy says that you are charging across Yugoslavia and having a wonderful time, and I don’t suppose I shall ever hear one half of your adventures.

  We went on a pilgrimage all round the island on Wednesday, singing hymns on the beaches, in the old marble quarry (lovely pale green marble of which the altar in the abbey is made, but the quarry is not worked now) and on the hill-tops. The sheep and highland cattle gazed at us. Great variety of dress, including full skiing outfits and Alpine boots, and one American pastor in jungle survival kit and a tartan bonnet marked Commonwealth Games 1970. (I could see his children were embarrassed by this.) A young Finnish pastor, with a pipe and blond beard, went barefooted but wearing a knitted white hat. I always look at myself as a sedentary timid kind of person but on these occasions I realise we really are quite used to walking and it’s such a relief not to be carrying anything that the rocks and hills seemed to be nothing!

  I am sharing a room with a kindly grey-haired lady and we get on very nicely. I am on lunch duty, as we all have to help with the work here, but I don’t mind that: I’m in charge of the washing-up. In spite of long walks and sea-air, am getting very s
tout on porridge, bacon and eggs, scones, Scotch pancakes and gingerbread. Fruit only comes over once a week on the boat from the mainland.

  The communion service here isn’t a bit like ours – the bread (a delicious loaf baked in the abbey) and the wine are consecrated at the altar and then brought down by deacons and passed along the pews, and you break off a bit of bread and pass the loaf along – I thought I’d hate it, but I rather liked it in the end: a Scottish minister here told me that in some Scottish churches everybody has separate glasses for the wine! The Presbyterians, too, don’t kneel, so if you’re in the row behind them there’s not much room to put your arms, but one shouldn’t be worried by these little things.

  A new group of American ministers have arrived – they sailed across from America as a yacht crew!

  I am doing a lot of pebbling on the beaches, which are lovely, with pinkish-white sand and light and dark green marble pebbles.

  much love darling and always thinking of you all x ma

  185 Poynders Gardens

  London, sw4

  Friday [c.January 1972]

  Dearest Ria,

  Thinking of you very much and wondering if the snow has begun to fall, and when your first letter will arrive.

  I’m back at Queens Gate, which has been transformed with more white-painted fire doors so that it’s impossible to get from one part of the school to the other. The Russian teacher – typical in every way, with beard, elderly, scented, and one of those turban like hats – came back into the staff-room saying ‘Where is now the class? I cannot reach because there is no doors in the walls.’ Fortunately my very worst pupil has been asked discreetly to leave the school so I shan’t see any more of her.

  I watched the ski championships on TV with some alarm – lorryloads of snow were being poured on the piste and everyone was falling down and making ‘marvellous recoveries’. C & A are still selling the dreaded ski jackets, but they are not so nice with yellow linings.

  I have bought some Irish tweed in the sales, dark orange and brown, to make a skirt, as those in the C & A aren’t long enough for me – I do hope I can cut it out right, as it is herringbone and must all go the same way, and round the waist the other way – it’s what the patterns mysteriously describe as ‘with nap’! I’ll report to you how the old sewing machine goes as I expect you’ll eventually want to make some summer things, incredible though that seems – that is (it’s just occurred to me) if you come home and not to the problematical flat.

  Very short letter from Valpy, who is staying at Downside while Angie is at the wedding in Córdoba, getting up at 6 and wearing his habit. I suppose they ring a large bell. I do hope he’ll get into the way of writing longer letters when he gets to Guatemala.

  Trying to clean up a bit, but I can’t repaint the bathroom because it means going without a bath for 3-4 days twice, while the two coats dry, and I’m wedded to my bath. It does look awful, though.

  Mrs Sée’s memorial service yesterday – lovely singing, absurd and tactless remarks by the vicar –

  X much love mum

  Miss Freeston’s

  [Westminster Tutors]

  6 January [1972]

  Dearest Ria,

  I’m writing this at Miss Freeston’s, although I expect to see you at supper-time, because I wanted you to get a letter soon after your arrival, just to wish you luck! No pupil just at the moment (it turns out that Miss Freeston didn’t like the first timetable and the 2nd was actually chewed up by Topsy, who is dirty, blind and smelly beyond words) and I’m sitting here in my carefully brushed fringe and new M & S blouse and nothing to do. I’ve resolved not to go into the Army & Navy as I simply mustn’t spend any more money, and the only way to avoid this is to sit still on someone else’s premises.

  I realise that you must have been feeling sad this week and John* looks very sad and his beard very long and dispirited looking, but I’m glad that this is a decision you’ve taken entirely yourself and I hope and think it’ll be something you’ll enjoy; if it’s not, of course Daddy must bring you back at once and we shall think of something to tell the Speisses.

  I shall be very lonely without you and without your encouragement in my depression, but I shall and must get used to it, and I’ve been fortunate in that, having 3 children, it’s been spaced out over the years and you get accustomed to it as you do to everything else – nature is remarkably self-healing in this as in other respects, but it’s a great wrench, there’s no denying.

  Now don’t forget to eat well and be in the fresh air as much as possible, because your health has not been so very good after the extremely hard work for the exam. (The trouble is I think that it gets dark at 4 and then one starts eating cakes, but they’re wholesome too.)

  Best Love and we are all thinking of you – X Ma

  185 Poynders G.

  Saturday [10 January 1972]

  Dearest Ria,

  John called back looking very depressed and beard more drooping than ever with the carskey, and told me you had had to start from Birmingham! A most unwelcome extra trip up the M1. I’m afraid and I can’t think when you’ll get into the Mayrhofen! Longing to hear how everything is.

  Meanwhile I’ll tell you about the poor way I’ve been managing so far! I started down to the British Museum, but fell asleep there over my books, and had to be awakened by a kindly American scholar sitting next to me! So I thought I’d go home, but then felt wide awake. Then I thought I’d do some sepia drawing with my Rotring, I’d been saving this up, as I love drawing and it calms me down, but it wouldn’t work AT ALL and when I unscrewed it it poured dark brown ink all over me and my drawing and my notebook and the library book kindly got out for me by Auntie Mary! And when I re-screwed it up and tried to draw the nib just scratched, and when I pressed a bit harder the nib broke! I’m so miserable as it was my Christmas present and I’m sure would be lovely to draw with and now it’s ruined! I don’t understand the instructions at all, and fear I shall have to wait for months until you come back again!

  I’ve taken the rest of the evening trying to mop up the ink, water &c. and repair the ruined things.

  However the glove is going quite well, and now I’m working out my own pattern and shall write it down and throw away the dreadful glove booklet.

  I’m thinking so much about you, I think it’s most courageous to launch out into this formidable world of ski hotels and ski instructresses with flashing smiles, but I’m sure you’ll get the measure of them – after all you managed very well with the postmen.

  The bathroom basin is stopped up again but I think that’s one more little thing Daddy must do when he returns.

  Do hope your nose is not getting too cold.

  Much love always X Ma

  Poyndersgarten

  16 January [1972]

  Dearest Maria,

  So distressed to hear about your loneliness which I understand perfectly, and though I hope perhaps things may get a bit better, you must not worry for Daddy will fetch you back after a month if you feel you can’t go on. It might be awkward for him but if you feel the whole thing really won’t do, you know we should never let you go on being unhappy. Daddy is putting through a call to the office tomorrow and I do hope he will be able to speak to you direct and then we shall know exactly what you think.

  It’s always awful at first – Tina rang and said that even Lynne felt like walking out of Harrods after 3 days, because nobody spoke to her in the tea-break! But if it goes on and on, that’s different. (Needless to say, Oxford must be quite different, as your friends must be in various colleges anyway and you’ll have to work in some kind of team in the labs I expect.)

  Sunday afternoon and Daddy has just woken up and is making himself a large cup of tea! He’s annoyed because I didn’t call him earlier and says he’s lost 3 hours of his life! But I meant well in letting him snore on!

  I have cut out my Irish tweed skirt but daren’t look at the pieces in case I’ve cut them out the wrong way up. Several vital piec
es of the pattern are missing anyway. Have also finished the bootees for Miss Singh’s illegitimate baby, but can’t find any baby ribbon.

  I’m turning out the kitchen cupboard bit by bit, and washing the drawing-room carpet section by section (this doesn’t appear to make a bit of difference) as everything makes me so stiff these days. I can still touch my toes though.

  I don’t remember whether I told you that I lost one of the precious Fair Isle gloves on the 45 bus, and the heart just seemed to go out of me, so I’ve given up – but not entirely! I’ve unpicked the famous red gloves and am knitting them up again for you!

  This letter seems to be all about handiwork, but I’m thinking so much about you dearest – love Ma X

  185 Poyndersgarten

  23 January [1972]

  This is not a proper letter but just to send you these forms, as they should be sent to the school (Godolphin) by Jan 31 and I can’t fill in some details about your exams – also am not sure about date of your leaving school – shouldn’t you technically be there till March? As you see I’ve got Daddy to sign it so it can go straight to the school secretary.

  I’m waiting now for Daddy to ring you up tomorrow and see how things are and what you feel about staying.

  I went to Oxford on Sat – Tina stunning in sage-green trousers and Francesca getting avocados ready for little supper for Pole. Tina now thinking (vaguely) of year in West Indies at some point: she MIGHT ask Francesca’s brother, the blind headmaster, about it, however, her finals are obviously the main thing at the moment. We both had a good worry about you!