I wrote the above on Saturday evening and was going to finish it on Sunday morning but then Ria came in early to tell me about Princess Di. It upset us immensely and made us feel unreasonably sad and guilty, and yet we couldn’t exactly say why.
Children of course fed up, as all their favourite TV programmes cancelled.
Tina’s house in Cornwall is now repaired and very much improved, all the old kitchen lino gone and the old slates uncovered, new snowy-white frig and gas cooker, new carpeting on the stairs and new bathroom and TV. She feels like a lottery winner. But no wistaria – even the clematis montana won’t take – only things with stiff, gnarled branches, and thorn-bushes. Perhaps I’ve told you all this before, if so forgive me.
Another good thing is that The Blue Flower did unexpectedly well in America (none of the others did). And another good thing is that Anne could be with you during the early summer. What a brick she is – a very old-fashioned term, but it’s the one I want.
All my love to you and Mike. I’m so glad to hear he’s correcting your driving. It’s like old times – Mops.
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
Scarcely any berries on
the holly down south.
27 December [1997]
Dearest Willie,
What beautiful black gloves you sent me, emphatically for best, and I shall keep them for best. Turning out what I think of as my glove drawer I found lots of terrible odds and ends and got rid of them to make room for the new ones, an immense improvement. And thankyou for the mysterious and beautiful pendant for my birthday.
I hate Christmas being over, all the more because (quite unlike you) I do scarcely anything whereas Ria is indefatigable, making mincemeat, adjusting the children’s computer &c – both she and John are white with fatigue (Ria has got a new office in Great Ormond Street, to work in conjunction with the Children’s Hospital, as well as her office at the university, and John is sorting out heaven knows what about the Korean financial crisis), and John’s parents have arrived for 3 days stay, with bags and umbrellas.
All the traditional disasters happened – the cat got into the cellar where the turkey was waiting on a nice cold shelf and it was only just rescued in time, Alfie appeared quite well, but mysteriously ran a temperature as soon as he was put to bed and was only restored to health by being brought downstairs, and I was laid low by backache, so I can’t quite explain why we all enjoyed ourselves so much. There’s just the pantomime this afternoon, then reality again. For me that means starting on next year’s Booker Prize, as I’ve agreed to be one of the judges this year. I can’t think why as I feel much too old and feebleminded to be anything of the sort. I suspect they’re finding it difficult to get anyone to do it.
This is a very selfish letter – please remember I’m thinking particularly about Mike and you this Christmas – and I did so like Mike’s specifications for Jay’s speech – not more than four minutes, and nothing low.
all my love and best Christmas wishes
Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
11 January [c.1998]
Dearest Willie,
So glad to hear from you that Mike is so much better and Jay has this good job. You did sound so depressed (I don’t mean you complained) and now, such a miracle, you don’t. The only thing I feel doubtful about is the sticks – of course they must help or you wouldn’t use them, but personally I find that when I’m going out I’m always carrying something, and that often takes up both hands or at least only leaves one, which I feel I may need to grab hold of something. And so I stagger on without one.
John and Ria’s farmhouse in Wales is getting quite grand, with three bathrooms and a ping-pong table for the (frequent) wet days. John is undoubtedly a house person. He looks really radiant when there’s any need to go up on the roof and check the flues, or put up the fences (blown down by the wind) again, but he says he won’t stay much longer as Head of Group Risk Management at the Deutsche Bank – it’s just too exhausting – he has to go to Frankfurt or Utrecht every week or so, and he says he’s getting too old for it.
Tina has been without electricity or telephone for days – it’s just been put back and she ventured about into the garden and found snowdrops in flower – we haven’t got any this year. But the Siberian (Alpine?) violets you gave me have come up gallantly. Luke, Tina’s eldest) has just reached the moody stage, playing stormy chords on the piano, or lying on his bed muttering ‘What is the use of life?’, the younger two are still cheerful.
Willie, I could never do all the cooking you do, and I can’t imagine how you get it done. I’m just going to drag myself into my little kitchen to peel a single potato (perhaps two) for dinner. Just think of all the people you’ve fed in your lifetime! Convey my very real congratulations to Mike.
Ria is back from California – she says there was an entire village in Swiss chocolate in the shopping mall of her hotel – and Valpy back from Bangkok, where he’s been on a conference about heaven knows what. I am reluctantly facing the things which I put off to think about after Christmas – the worst one is that I really don’t think I can write another novel, I am too decrepit, so I must break my contract with my publishers, and it will be such a nuisance, and a cause of reproach, and of their behaving honourably and decently, or perhaps they’ll behave indecently, I don’t know which will be worse.
We had a splendid Christmas here except the pudding managed to boil dry – but Ria kept her head and served up the middle part, which was still more or less all right, wreathed in flames, and no-one noticed. I’m sure your ‘quiet Christmas’ turned out to be nothing of the sort, by the way, it never does, but I do so hope it left you both feeling well. I’ve just remembered another of Mike’s sayings – the unaccountable feeling of satisfaction when you finish a packet or a jar of anything and throw the empty packet into the bin: you feel you’ve achieved something – he’s absolutely right about this –
all my love and best wishes to you both, and indeed to any of the family who happen to be in the house Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
1 April [1998]
Dearest Willie,
How lovely to hear from you, only I’m sorry Mike has these ups and downs. You say he didn’t feel up to the outing to meet Michael Harker – was that the man you once took me to lunch with – but where was it – it was a house he’d lived in when he was a boy, but he seemed to take that so calmly and have no regrets – honestly Willie you sometimes complain about your memory, but mine has become abysmal, and to my dismay I can clearly remember (as you’re always supposed to) things that happened in childhood, and everything after that is increasingly hazy. I can’t even repeat Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale to myself right through, which used to have such a good calming effect when I was having the babies.
But in a way I don’t care – I’m a very old woman now and feel I must be borne with.
I felt really cheered by your description of Jay’s visit and so relieved that he finds the directors civilised. – I think for the very first time, isn’t it – it looks as though this was going to be the long-sought-after right job.
I was staggered by getting the U.S. Critics’ Book Award, Chris did ring and tell me I was on the shortlist and I was pleased about that, he said could you send me a few words by way of a Speech of Acceptance, I said I wouldn’t dream of it as it would make me feel such a fool. So he wrote a few words of acceptance and went to New York with them and lo and behold he actually had to get onto the platform and deliver them, just like the Oscars. It’s the first year they’ve allowed non-Americans to be considered, so I feel proud, yes I do.
Meantime my dearly-loved English publisher, Stuart, has left HarperCollins on a point of principle, as he had got Chris Patten’s Memoirs ready for press and then Rupert Murdoch said it must be cancelled as it might get in the way of his deals with the Chinese. I see Stuart has been awarded ‘a six-figure sum’
as compensation for constructive dismissal, but I feel I must leave HarperCollins and go wherever he goes. What a nuisance, I don’t like these upsets, I like everything to go on just the same from day today. My cup of tea at 7.30, my little walk to the shop to get the Evening Standard – it’s dreadful really, but Willie, we’re survivors, so we might as well revel in it.
Ria and John do far too much, but they love their farmhouse in Wales – 3 bathrooms and a lawnmower like a small car, specially for hill-mowing – and swallows in summer –
much love to you all from Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
7 May [1998]
Dearest Willie,
I don’t think reminiscing is senile. It gives you your time over twice, and some of them were such good times. Leaving Wycombe Abbey, Bucks. was one of them. I can hear Auntie now, up on the dais praying for ‘those who go forth from this school’, I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t ever have to go back to it again. And yet some of them were really nice. Rachel was. We couldn’t believe it when she, courageously, told the house that she was engaged, and yet I suppose she was only between 35 and 40.
And your p.c. of Alderney brought that back to me – the house on the rocks and that strange museum full of mouldy stuffed birds, and your stalwart rowing to get over the ‘bar’ – and you were so small, and the boat was so large.
I certainly wish I hadn’t taken on the Booker judging this year. I thought it would be a nice sedentary occupation, and after all I have done it before, but I’ve definitely gone downhill since then and I think books have got longer – I’ve only done 35 so far (I keep counting them) so 100 more to come, and already there’s hardly any floor space left in my little room. Also, I drop off to sleep almost immediately when I start to read them – it’s becoming an automatic reaction.
It’s so good of you to ask me to come and stay when you have so much to do, but the trouble is I have attacks of arthritis (My Back which I now dignify by the name of my Degenerative Arthritis), not all the time, thank heavens, but I never know when it will come, and when it does I have to stay put and ask John to get my oranges, potatoes, and all important alcohol with the household shopping. Do you think I could write again, as it’s rather bad at the moment? I don’t mind whether the weather is cold or not – not a bit – and I should love to see you.
Maria and John getting on very well with their Welsh hill property. They went up there at lambing-time. John bought an amazing new mower to take up there – I told him it reminded me of a Baby Austin in the old days and he said it was built on the same principle.
Must now go to a Royal Society of Literature committee. I hate committees, and can never think of anything to say, and there is a woman called Selina Hastings who is always making me feel small –
all my love to you and Mike – Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
12 July [1998]
Dearest Willie,
To start with, I do appreciate your re-reading my books. Really, it makes it worthwhile having written them.
I agree Charlotte Mew’s short stories do take some getting through, but I think her short pieces, like An Old Servant, have a certain something. I was very glad to have been given her candlesticks, just plain brass, and I don’t use them – and a drawing by Burne-Jones, not signed, just a sketch for a portrait, but it’s wonderful to have something you can touch, and I also managed to go and see people who had known or at least spoken to B-J and had known Charlotte Mew quite well.
I want to explain about your kind invitation, more than kind, considering all you’ve got to do – but that involves talking about My Health – and I seem always to be talking to people who say My Aunt is wonderful – she is Eighty, but she might be Any Age and She Never Complains – well, I mightn’t be any other age and I do complain – my real trouble is this arthritis, which didn’t, so to speak, come naturally, but as a result of the various drugs I’m given to keep my heart ticking (not warfarin as I’ve always refused to take it) – however, you know all about these – the doctor says (more or less) that if I stop taking these nasty pills my heart will stop altogether – I don’t really feel outraged by this, and I remember Mike did, rather I feel sorry for my heart which has made such an effort for so long, (rather like the horse that comes in last on the Saturday afternoon racing on TV, which I sometimes watch, and we’re told ‘the distance was too much for poor old ‘. I was supposed to be going on a tour of Europe, Germany, Belgium and France – (a dismal prospect anyway, you’ll say) – for the British Council, but have had to say I can’t go. – I can just about walk down to the shops and back, or to the top of the hill where I can get a bus to go and see Mary (who is still in her nursing home and gives me a great welcome but alas! doesn’t know who I am at all). The upshot of all this is, that because this arthritis has got worse at the moment I don’t really feel up to a long journey, but I do so much want to see you and Mike – indeed, I was caught myself sitting and thinking, shall I ever see Mike and Willie again in this life? but then told myself that this sort of thing wouldn’t do.
Do you think I could ask you again in the autumn – Sept–Oct? – surely I must be better by then – I’ve been all wrong since last Christmas. (I even have trouble getting out of a taxi, my knees don’t bend properly, it would be better if they bent the other way, like a horse’s). It wouldn’t matter a bit if the weather was bad. We could just sit still and I would try to pitch my voice up, it’s usually all right if you sit straight opposite the person you’re talking to, I find. Anyway, it’s often lovely in autumn.
All this is in answer to your PPS How is Your Back? But there is also a PPPS about the garden and how it’s been a wonderful flowering season – you say in M’s garden – so I take it you mean the rhodos which I regard particularly as his – that must be lovely, and I hope you weren’t tempted to ask the Mothers’ Union in to see them, as I think you used to do.
Ria took the whole of her department over to Berlin for a conference – how could she? – they went over to East Berlin for their meals and sat in the mitteleuropean sun. Tina laid low by some pneumonia-ish thing, she has lost her voice and can’t eat anything, it seems, but cream crackers. These young women work too hard in my opinion. They are both very thin – Tina and Maria. Valpy is expected to lunch today, but will probably be late. He has just been to Washington – to discuss the apparent lack of money in the Far East – But what can he do about that? – I am feebly turning over the immense pile of Booker books – which, fortunately, I can do lying down – but then there’s a temptation to close one’s eyes –
all my love to both of you – mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
27 December [c.1998]
Dearest Willie,
What a delightful surprise – Mike is absolutely right about the whisky-taking moment in the day, although I usually don’t have whisky itself (unless I’m staying at Terry Bank) – but now I shall. It does help so! A. E. Housman was so right to write
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best
And all’s to do again –
I can’t help feeling this every morning, although it passes off with a cup of tea, to some extent, but when 7 o’clock comes I have an illusion that I’ve earned a rest, actually earned it, even though I haven’t got anything to show for it, and now I shall be able to have a nip of whisky, and think of kind friends.
Oh the blessed peace and quiet, it seems unbelievable. – Let’s just hope that your trailing geranium is spared.
As to writing a book, things are not very satisfactory – as I only have myself to cook for and have allowed mind-your-own-business to grow between the shrubs in my little bit of garden, so I don’t have any weeding to do. I really ought to have got down to it, and with that in mind I signed up a contract for a new novel, but meanwhile I had this good luck in America and The Blue Flower sold so well that I actually have a bit of money and now don’t feel impelled to
write any thing at all. – This is with Houghton Mifflin, the Boston publisher, where my editor is so nice and has called his cat Charlotte Mew and rings up to tell me how his children are getting on in school and what he’s growing in his yard. They are now bringing out The Bookshop as well, although it will seem very old-fashioned by now. Historical, let’s hope. I enclose a paperback of Burne-Jones, which now has a few colour plates, in case you’d like it, if not it will do for the next Kirkby L. coffee morning sale.
Mary is still in the Goldhurst nursing-home and, although she always gives me a great welcome, she is deafer than ever and I don’t feel she really knows who I am – but on the other hand she doesn’t worry about things as she used to do, in fact she doesn’t seem to worry at all. It’s so sad when people change so much, that it hardly bears thinking about.
All well otherwise – the siberian violet you gave me has at last got going and I have great hopes of it next spring –
All my love to you and Mike –
Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
March 28 [c.1999]
Dearest Willie,
How lovely to get your letter but I was APPALLED to hear of your fall in the kitchen, just like Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads and I hate to think of how painful it must have been. Also I don’t quite understand (but I must have got this wrong) – I thought you’d made the grand move downstairs, installed a downstairs bathroom &c – but here you are still upstairs, counting your sheep and lambs – and Willie, the divan in M’s dressing-room must, surely, be uncomfortable in the extreme. And the steroids too, and to think of the complaints I’m always making about My Back.
So I Have Thought of You Page 25