by Adam Thorpe
Mon. April 13th 1953
Clearing. Spam fritters.
Miss W. back from her holiday somewhere: loads of giggling above now needless to say. Squealing. Typed ‘The Life As Lived’ all day, up to August 1939. Not a hint of my interview in July. He does get his dates a bit out sometimes. Comes of not keeping strict diary. Tempted to hear on but that’s never been my way. I type what I have to type, & hear what I like to hear. The Nanking Road rather good. Took in cocoa tray and Miss W. had got there first. Felt like that time Gordon brought Father’s slippers down while I was on the toilet & I was only about seven. Betrayed. Miss W. in easy chair said oh here’s Violet now can you help us. Herbert thinks the name ‘Ulverton’ is because they used to have wolves but I say it’s either owls or Canute. Canute of the waves? I enquired, coolly. Yes, she said. Then something about Canute and his bodyguards and their manners. Well, I’m not one of her pupils. So what do you think, my dear? from Herbert. I said History’s not my subject, Mr B., and I have more important things on my mind than nomenclature (that was the word, uttered straight out). Then H. did his vulgar bit. The valley’s shape and all that. Just to make me flush, no doubt. Who the devil lopped off the V, etc. Gives out big roar of laughter. Miss W. tut-tutted I’ll give her that. Sometimes I wonder whether Herbert ever quite got over his teenage years, as they say about Mozart I believe. Miss Walwyn is rather full of herself, that’s the trouble. Up too many pegs, as Father always snapped about Kenneth, poor soul. Though only a quarter Jewish, in the end.
Tues. April 14th 1953
Mild, v. bright sun. Bovril.
Typed ‘The L. As L.’ up to December 1939. Nothing. That is, nothing on myself. I think he must have got his years wrong. That doesn’t bode well for whole, does it? No appetite – funny butterflies feeling in stomach. Dull play about talking pigs on wireless. Light only has Accordion Band on. Third just thumpy Beethoven. Have to drown giggles somehow. I’m very worried, actually. A Daisy Powder or I’ll not get off at all, though the packet’s rather old (got it after V.E. Day for obvious reasons!) Finished Cherry Heering, talking of that. Meant to offer some to Herbert. Never seems to be free of an evening to come down, these days.
Wed. April 15th 1953
Mild, sunny. Bovril.
Up to August 1940. Nothing! Only: ‘I gave the papers to my secretary and drove immediately off, exultant with a newfound feeling of liberation from all the daily dross of this scheming, sick world.’ No appetite. Awful caved-in feeling in stomach. Doan’s haven’t helped. Mother used to swear by Cockle’s for nervous indigestion. That awful giggling. Squealing. Like Mr Oadam’s pigs. Coronation Committee Meeting 6.30: Mr Donald Jefferies said he’s got every waggon in the parish & lots of implements for the bonfire. I said did he hear that interesting programme on Sunday? He said obsolete equine carriages have nothing to do with our new Elizabethan era of streamlined speed & efficiency. Dr Scott-Parkes took off his spectacles and mentioned possibility of national famine if we didn’t increase productivity. Like he tells you to eat plenty of greens or else. Mr Daye said we must increase crop yields by something or other. Mr Stroude said what happened to the ploughing-up policy and chortled (that’s the word). Then they all went on and on. Mouths moving, arms waving. Subsidies. Phosphates. Batteries. Fifty per cent something. Hill farming obsolete. Policy at half-cock. Artificial inseminating vital (I think that’s what my Minutes say). On and on. Lots of nodding. Felt such a fool about the waggons, like I was simple. Low tonight. Secretary! Want to read on but never been my way.
Oh Herbert
Thurs. April 16th 1953
Warm, clear intervals. Potato soup.
Up to end of 1940. Nothing. ‘My secretary opened the door & Mr Alfred Bestall entered.’ Alfred, of course. Nice man. Herbert nearly got Rupert in 1932. He just couldn’t get the face right. Very good on Nutwood & surrounds, though. That lovely valley.
Fri. April 17th 1953
Warm, sunny. Bread & dripping.
Up to August ’41. Nothing. ‘The feeling that my energies were at their peak was a potent one, and only when my secretary came in with a cup of cocoa (O the reins of routine!) did that flowing current of creative electricity cease.’ I’d thought he’d have brought me in when the Project idea was floated. That time in the shelter. Walked the river up to Grigg’s Wood and back. Clear my head. Lovely still day. Everything a bit like glass. Thought of those singers who can shatter it (glass). Made attempt (no one about) on Saddle Bridge leaning over but came out a funny squeak. Fancy if I had and the world suddenly went with a pop. Could almost imagine it, it all looked so fragile and leaves sticky & translucent, like Shirley’s first in the hospital. Its eyelids. Sunlit trees and water and whatnot. Felt just like a little girl again, on the bridge. Looking into the water. Making my squeak. Yes yes.
Sat. April 18th 1953
Warm, gusty. Bovril.
End of ’41. ‘It was leafing through a book on fossils in the shade of the pear-tree, and seeing a photograph of a prehistoric fly caught in amber, that re-awoke that long-buried dream, and only when my secretary interrupted my reverie with some lemon barley water, did I descend from that glorious, potent mountain!’
Interrupted
Sun. April 19th 1953
Cool, raining.
Holy Communion. Felt dizzy, left before sermon. Thought angel was about to fall on top of me. Suffocating. In bed. Excused presence at lunch. V. low. Nothing in me. Glass of milk helped.
Oh Herbert
Mon. April 20th 1953
Mild, squalls.
Typed. Summer of ’42. Nothing. Nothing at all. Those spool things make me giddy, going round and round like that.
Tues. April 21st 1953
Mild, grey. Tomato soup.
Typed. End of ’42. Nothing. ‘Well, I suppose you have felt this power, this desire to change the world. Come on now, have you not? I have! My secretary has not. My baker has not. Your linoleum salesman has not. But we have!’ Letter from Museum (only took them eight months): ‘The item you retrieved from the River Fogbourne is not, as you thought, a Saxon dagger but a bradawl, probably eighteenth century.’ A non-spiral boring-tool, apparently. Might have known.
Wed. April 22nd 1953
Mild, sunny. Boiled egg.
Typed. Middle of ’43. Nothing. ‘Only the tapping keys of the distant typewriter came between me and a sort of glowing Nirvana as my pen flowed across the white page.’ House-martin poisoned. Too much noise, said Herbert. So looking forward to those tiny mouths yearning.
Thurs. April 23rd 1953
Fresh, sunny. Marie biscuits.
December ’43. ‘My secretary went down to her room, leaving me to enjoy that delicious solitude of the self-seeker before the roaring fire. What a Xmas, truly, for the ripe soul!’ Up to Barrow. Greater celandine out. Common blue. Corn bunting on telegraph wire. Peewits.
Fri. April 24th 1953
Cool, sunny intervals. Thin Arrowroot biscuits.
Mr Bradman in London. Up to September ’44. ‘The bombs rained down upon Europe, but I was elsewhere in my soul. I drew deliriously, obsessively, ended only by cocoa brought on a tray, the powder still circling slowly upon the top, like the Milky Way, like the spiral of the ancients, like the Vital Desire itself!’ Letter from Gordon. Mother’s a turn for the worse. I’ll have to go up I spose.
Sat. April 25th 1953
Chill, snow in Buxton. Vegetable soup.
Miss W. upstairs. Spring ’45. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Wrote to Gordon. Will be coming up. Took in cocoa and music blasting away on gramophone. Miss W. and H. in easy chairs with eyes shut. Thought they were asleep. Turned it right down. Your cocoa, Mr B., and I think I’ll be turning in now. You’d think I’d kicked them. That supreme moment, Violet, and you shattered it! Supreme moment, Mr B.? Gerontius meeting the angel! Face to face at last! Oh the dross and trivia of this world, obscene, obscene!
Sometimes I feel like having a good weep
Sun. April 26th 1953
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br /> Cold. Soup.
H. Communion. Walk to White Horse. Mr Stephen Bunce found me. Brought horse & cart, took me down. Gave me brandy in his council house in Vanners Crescent. Smelt of dogs. Kind folk. Never been in one before. You looks very creamy, Miss Nightingale. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Oh Violet
Mon. April 27th to Fri. May 1st 1953: incapacitated. Panic overhead. Furniture moved about like thunder. Mrs Dart said saw robin tap my window which means a death. Sorry to disappoint, I said.
Sat. May 2nd 1953
Warm, sunny. Dumplings.
Contributions weekend. Certainly ‘quotidian’. H. kept out of way. No more HP Sauce bottles tomorrow, and that’s flat. Headache from smiling. Some of the clothes smell. Well
Sun. Apr
Tues. May
Mon. May 18th 1953
Warm, overcast. Yorkshire pudding.
‘The Life As Lived’ finished. Nothing. Last paragraph. Spring 1953. ‘Enid and I walked up that day to the ruined mansion, her eyes flashing hope, mine only adoration. “April is the cruellest month”, she whispered, as we climbed to the terrace hand in hand. Within, where England’s old order had crumbled to dripping ceilings and scrawled walls, where perhaps you, the reader, are now cropping your sheep, or landing your space rockets, we found a bed. Here the seed was planted anew, as I had planted those ancient seeds. Just as I now plant this great steel seed filled with the dross of our so-called “civilisation”, and the struggle of one to free himself, as an angel must from the material shards of a lesser world, through the agency of the female essence, from that trivial and clogging stuff we call “daily life”, that you see before you in all its reality. And even there, the world invaded, poked us, did not let us be (see illustration). Only in death may that joy be everlasting, may that seed flower, just as this seed before you now has flowered in your eyes, like the golden flower of Homer. Pick it, and rejoice! May it give you hope! May it give you life! May it give you, too, O posterity, that vital fire of love!’
Handed it all over. Apple-pie order. Illustrations coming on, Mr B.? All done, Violet. Goodness gracious, you are a marvel, my dear. Look at this! So neat and tidy! Well I was thoroughly trained, Mr B. May I have a glance at the illustrations? Oh no my dear. There are some things that even you cannot view. Only posterity has that privilege, my dear!
Seems to have forgotten about my written contribution. Just as well. No stomach for it.
Tues. May
Wed. May 20th 1953
Mild. Coronation Committee Meeting: no more bunting needed, Miss N. You shd have brought it earlier! Ill, I know. But thank you anyway on behalf of the etc. Maybe the cottage hospital wd be interested? You’re looking better, I’ll say that. Have you checked yr garden for bonfire stuff? It’s rather wild at back, Miss N. Found two waggons already & a threshing machine in old barn on Barr’s Farm – hid under collapsed roof for 25 years, can you imagine? Gardened. Herbert distant. Biggest bonfire ever. Red Admiral. Chiff-chaff behind shed. No waggons.
Thu
Sun. May 24th 1953
Missed church. Hiked (that’s the word) up to Kisser Cross. Blowy. Wind right through me. Buffeting. So open up there, that’s the trouble. Let it push me off, almost. Like flying. Or as if nothing in way of it (i.e. the wind). Skylark on fence-post. Prefer it up high, funny scruffy brown thing down here. THINK I SAW STONE CURLEW!! Need stronger binoculars.
Elgar blasting away again. Her present to him, I believe.
Mon. May 25th 1953
Repository arrived on back of lorry. Only a week late. Like big bomb. Shiny steel. Makes me look wide. Mr Webb put cherrywood compartments inside. Fit to a T, look, Mr Bradman. Packing the Material. I don’t say much.
Tue.
Thurs. May 28th 1953
Packing the Material. Location Stone delivered. ‘Posterity’ spelt with an ‘e’ on the end. At least he got the 4953 date right, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. ‘Of bitter prophecy’ a bit too crowded, I thought, but then I’m always a stickler. H. displeased, but I didn’t tell him about the wrong celandine on Wordsworth’s. Why should I? Don’t have
Fri. May 29th 1953
Packing. Herbert like little boy. Bisto in with the Oxo cubes now, Violet!
Don’t have the stomach, but I do it.
Sat. May 30th
Mummy sweet pea’s first flower. Rather small, but bright yellow. Picked it before a soul was up, just like that. In jam-jar on my window-sill. Waited 3,000 years and only felt early morning sun & a bit of a breeze on its petals. Better than nothing. Like a bird’s-foot trefoil, that golden
Sun. May 31st ’53
Walked up to scarp at dawn. Back along river. Whinchat. Bit of white campion by stile. Viper’s bugloss in usual place (early). Ragged robin out at last in Quabb B. Heron by ruined mill? Repository all ready for Burial (Planting, he calls it now. Well, it’s a bit late for me to change.) Tripped over bunting on way to church. Bunting everywhere. Miss W. got children at school to make them, needless to say. All colours of rainbow. Gold and silver even, like wings. Rather windy. Bit of sun. Bonfire or whatever by Saddle Bridge half-built already. Big. Waggons & carts one on top of another like they’ve dropped from sky. Thump thump. Loads of axes swinging away at lots of things. Big sweaty men grinning, tossing on wooden bits, swinging their axes. Nice old hay-wain straight out of Constable went in two minutes. Splinters flying they’d better watch their eyes. Two men holding either end of plough, looked just like Mr Dimmick’s. One two three & on it goes. Little boy rolling barrel up. Waggons looked bigger all piled up. Like a pile of elephants out of that book on Africa. Gone without a struggle, as Joan Lowe said of her Eric. Little by Little, as Kenneth said, rather cruelly. Scribbled down the names on Gordon’s envelope. Habit. Have to have a name, don’t we? They’ve all got a bit of flaky paint & a name. Like on war memorial. Poppy day. Blast on the trumpet. JOHN STIFF, MAPLEASH FARM ULVERTON 1833. LORD CHARLES H. CHALMERS ULVERTON HOUSE FARM, ULVERTON. ERNEST M.BARR ULVERTON 1887. JACOB SWIF … (rest indecipherable – greasy patch on Gordon’s envelope). Funny poem on wireless full of names. Like lullaby spinning round and round. Gordon’s good on names. Missed ‘What’s My Line’. Thought it best all round. Hardly seen him. It sounds a bit religious, this. Will send me to sleep I hope. Nice voices
Mon. June 1st 1953
Big hole in garden. Instructions deposited in the bank vault. Officially. Repository to be opened 4953 (June 2nd I suppose). Don’t have faith that bank vaults will survive but still. Big mechanical digger thing snorting away. Tore up lawn in two minutes, azaleas with it of course. Small crane coming tomorrow to lift it in. Six years’ work. More, really. Meat-paste repeating. Nerves. Everything packed. He’s going about waving his hands like little boy. Another mummy sweet pea out. Just in time for his speech. Whole village gone a bit mad, really. With Coronation, not our do, of course. Scouts came & put canvas wrap over it cos it’s set to pour. Our Sovereign will get soaked says Mrs Whiteacre. Took the roll of bandage up to bonfire or whatever. Taller than the trees now, just waiting. Like the back of Ray Leatherbarrow when Shirley was late to the altar. She and her pink roses. River gurgling past. Hooked bandage on waggon shaft & walked round and round, only circled twice before it (bandage) gave out. Tucked end into cart-wheel. Little boy watching with nose problem. What’s your name? Give Walters Miss, what you up to, Miss? I’m wrapping it all up, Master Walters. You’re bonkers, Miss. Bonkers! Runs off. Bonkers!
Miss W. squealing. Stamping. Plaster coming down like confetti.
4 a.m.: went out to garden with torch. Had to. Cool in nightie. Slippers soaked. Fiddled with toggles on canvas wrap for half an hour (Scout knots). Got it open. Lifted lid with a bit of an effort. Had to have a peep at the illustrations. ‘The Life As Lived’ on top. I’ve every right. Owl. Heart thumping. Painstaking work. Miss W. naked. Well, I’d thought as much. Cd hardly hold the torch straight. Last picture. Woman in Wellington boots. Thick coat. Those buttons. A few deft ink strokes etc. Currant-bun
face. Raisin for a mouth. Big frown. He’s always been good at frowns. Teeth. Adapted (could spot this a mile off) from his Matron McOgre strip in ‘The Schoolgirl’s Own Annual’ 1928 to 1931. Prods a bed with an umbrella. Cherubs on the ceiling. Naked foot protruding from blanket. Well, I might have known. Nice trees thru window. Caught it to a T, Violet. Caught it to a T. Rip it out, stumble over lawn, stop, go back, take out ‘The Life As Lived’, stumble over lawn, big folder suddenly bursts open like Father vomiting that time I bore him to the toilet, told him they were all show those artificial leather ones, paper, paper everywhere, all soggy with dew, taste salt on my lip suddenly and oh Violet you’re not snivelling again are you oh yes
oh yes
On my knees, probably catch my death & then the moon comes out, like snow all over the lawn that paper. Had to pick it up. Owl. Definitely screech. That’s something. Matron McOgre. Well, I’d started hadn’t I & all starts have to finish as Father wd say. Go back, take out next folder. Take out all the folders. Six years & a folder for each. Reach right up to my chin hold yr head high Violet. Walk back slowly over lawn. Here we are. Well done Violet. Well, she’s got Grandad’s bones, Kenneth. Oh Mother. Two old cases from wardrobe. Three folders in each. Spread them out. Have to go back to shut it. Pause a bit by big dark steel shape. Didn’t I? Owl. That’s something. Lots of wild bits at the back. Take out ‘Collected Works’. That’s a big artist’s file type of thing and it’s all in there. Bournville. Paxo Stuffing series. Hitler. Cheek by jowl with the others. All those spirals and flames I never took to much. My inner workings Violet. I don’t know if I have any of those, Mr B. Moon comes out like a searchlight. You cd see them probing. Those times. Nice. All neatly packed. Television looking up like a little pond with the moon in it. Bisto with the Oxo. Lucozade with the Victory V lozenges. Hoover a bit of a squeeze. That Soundmirror. Not going round & round now, is it? Gilbey’s gin half empty, I noticed. Big film canisters. Shd keep them busy hence. Savages, probably. Or big round heads like in that film. Lid back on. Dark. You don’t need the light, Violet. Canvas wrap. ‘Collected Works’ in Father’s big old suitcase. Never went anywhere with it, in the end. Go upstairs to check he wasn’t awake. Snoring like thunder. In bed. Cocoa.