I lit a fire in the study, moped for a while wanting and wanting something terribly exciting and unusual to happen, did the few chores, got some supper and gradually soothed down under the influence of warmth and food and kind Kilvert’s diary.139 The phone rang. Thomas! As usual wanting something (did I know of accommodation in London?) but we had a nice long most warming conversation. I then settled down to an evening with Kilvert. The phone rang again. Nockie, from a call box. She had spent the evening with Hugh Laming – in England and before going off on urgent Army matters to the Balkans. He very much wants to spend a few quiet days somewhere in the country, and is entranced by the idea of spending them here with me. Will I phone him tonight, late, or early tomorrow morning? He is very tired, has nowhere to go, and would so like – and so on.140
She is a witch. She would like me to get into bed with him. I will NOT do it. But unless I can somehow warn Hugh, he’ll expect it. His capacity for sexual affairs is fantastic. I would like him to come, though. He will be great entertainment and very interesting. He has been all over the Mediterranean, has a wife in Greece,141 has been in France. But perhaps he’d be bored with me. However he can read all he wants to while I’m at work and we can pub-crawl in the evenings.
There it is then. The terribly exciting something. I feel alternatively furiously angry with Nockie for foisting this situation on me and very delighted. No, I will not phone Hugh tonight. It would look too eager.
Tuesday, 14 November
I have seen him again – my darling, my darling – and I still do want him so, foolish, misguided, untamable woman! I swore in tears as I came home that I loved him. I am in the grip of something I can’t control. It is so strong sometimes that I move in a daze. When I knew Barbara Linnett wasn’t going home at 6 o’clock tonight I calculated and engineered my movements so that I might be passing his office just after 6.15 when I knew he might be coming out. It worked. It was like a miracle (I had to walk into the women’s cloakroom at the end of the passage and light a cigarette and come back again). He instantaneously stopped me and asked if I would like to be taken down the road ‘to save me waiting at the bus stop’. And then there I was in that beloved car again! Jean, you are the world’s prize idiot among women.
The moment was a sombre one. He has a sore throat, and is worried like most people are in the firm. The firm is losing money – or the losses are now becoming apparent. At the height of war production the profits were so enormous. It is going to get worse too, I gather. Perhaps he was trying to tell me I was on the staff redundancy list.
We drank Guinness at the fireside of one of the pubs at the Pump. We argued about heating, and the advantages and disadvantages of coal fires. He asked me about Lydia whom he sees me with at lunchtime (it occurred to me today to give her a friendly word of warning about him). No reference to the past at all, yet all accepted and ‘forgotten’. When I said I had taken on the cottage for another three years but might, when the war ended, want to go abroad again, he jumped out an offer to take it in my absence. Now thinking it over I am deeply offended – he would possess the cottage immediately if I left it, but never comes near it when I am there!
He guided me with his torch towards the bus stop – no touch, not much warmth in him tonight. God forgive me, but please let him come to me. No one who has come to know me well has ever regretted it.
A message from Hugh. He has had to go to his mother in Sheerness, but would like to come to me on Friday.
Sunday, 26 November
Hugh and I have had a wonderful week. I am still too near to it to say much yet, except that I am not in love with him and don’t think I ever could be. Curious that Nockie should plant him onto me. He is exactly the type that I usually fall for with pathetic heaviness.
All my urgent lecherous yearnings are now satisfied. How could I have expected Hugh to stay with me here at such close quarters without getting into bed with me? I didn’t want to, should never have chosen him as a lover myself, yet what a marvellous lover he is! He is thoroughly and incurably naughty and I am quite sure could never remain faithful to Cleopatra herself – or satisfy any sensitive woman deeply for long. Restless, restless, restless, even here where most people do seem to find repose.
Physically I am happier and calmer than I have ever been. A starving woman fed. I feel no shame. I have come and gone, not caring what the neighbours and tradespeople might be thinking. How is it such a delightful physical relationship does not touch the emotion at all? I still think of M. and look out for him in the office. If Hugh went abroad tomorrow I should be sharply disappointed – I want to see him again – but the heart would be little moved. A thoroughly selfish male, but so honest, and what enormous fun for a little while! sensual mouth, small moustache, temperament of a Latin and a continental lover’s technique. A butterfly’s (his own word) intense interest in nearly everything, witty, sharply intelligent, talking endlessly of himself and his adventures, – sublimely, disarmingly egotistical, sensitive, mercurial, exciting. Belongs essentially to the 1930s – Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham – a scintillating cynicism, a little shallow, brittle, the fascinating Fleet Street smart alec (he says he is tired of that role now, the war has been changing his values). An individualist of the pre-war years who won’t fit into our Brave New World (he calls me a 1946 woman). He like to think he has no illusions, knows all the rackets, sees through and despises the Left, knows all about women and how to deal with them. Happy? As happy as he can be, snatching, flitting, nibbling at this, flicking through that, taking in two or three things at once: does any of it stay?
Hugh Laming and son John in the offices of the Sydney Morning Herald after the war.
I understand a little better now Noël Coward’s ‘Let’s Say Goodbye’. ‘Let our affair be a gay thing …’ The feeling of that glittering, trifling era between the wars. He has given me a lot, my sweet Hugh, a lot that I thought I had missed or hadn’t got or was never to know. Somewhere from the Victorian age I have a hangover to be an inspiring, guiding, ministering angel. But all I do is encourage a man’s lust and laziness! My self-confidence shares have gone up though. How dare M. keep away from me?!
Monday, 27 November
I have had a charming, charming love letter from Hugh. He wrote and posted it on Saturday, while he was still here and I was out. Although I am such a damnable little sceptic I believe he means it: ‘I have been happier here than I dared dream. You gave me rest of mind and body when I needed both so desperately. Whatever the future may hold for us one does not forget these hours. Time has stood still for us; we have not spoken of love for fear of hurt, thus am I silent still …’
I don’t know how to answer this. I can be honest and cruel here. I didn’t refrain from speaking of love for fear of hurt. I didn’t want to – love, my idea of it anyway, just hasn’t come into the picture. But I don’t want to hurt him. I have had no chance of growing sentimental over Hugh. We knew him well in Malta. His first wife was ill with TB and he was blatantly unfaithful to her – we heard of his infidelities. He told me himself last week of the two–three day affair he had with Lillian Gish, who wanted him to go out to Hollywood to be her re-write man.142
He kept in touch with Nockie, and I have heard of him and his adventures through her. He told me a great, great deal about himself and his family last week. His frankness is engaging; one cannot help liking him for it. But I can’t forget that he is on his father’s side of a family of philanderers. He would live on my money without a qualm. He couldn’t give me the love I want, though I don’t know if physical fidelity in this is so important. There’s a virgin in me yet that no man has ever touched and won.
Saturday, 9 December
Hugh returned last Sunday evening, stayed until Wednesday morning and may come back again anytime. Why is it that just the sight of M. at the office makes my pulse race in a way it never does for Hugh, even in his most impassioned moments?
Do I really want H. here again? I have invited him for Xmas if he cares
to come. I want something good to come of this relationship – sex seems to me less and less important. I could have him here now and do without if he would, and be as happy, perhaps happier. It is nice to have a man around, however tiresome.
Tuesday, 12 December
I am helping Lydia decorate a club room in Slough with murals. Much to my amazement I have been painting mountains and trees on the walls with a flourish, gusto and effect. Would never have undertaken such a thing on my own initiative, but Lydia got me there on Sunday night, put a brush in my hand, and said ‘Do what you like’. I was terrified, but thought: well, mountain outlines are fairly easy, and I always did like doing blodgy trees in charcoal or very thick pencil. Landscape all the way round, mountains, valley and sea, and somewhere there is to be an Inn. Our efforts are really very amateurish, but our heart is in the right place.
This club is run by Curly, a friend of Lydia, and one of Slough’s worthy small tradesmen. He is I can see a very kind, good soul and devoted to Lydia in a rather dumb-dog fashion. He owns a radio business and was able to drive me home tonight.
Hugh is prancing about town with a (male) American he picked up recently in the Poland Street King’s Arms. (This is Hugh’s focal point in London: if one meets Hugh in town it is at the King’s Arms.) I discovered that H. had figured to bring him down here for his leave. I should have collapsed. Hugh on his own was strain enough. He grumbled at stew, did not like sweets, wanted everything fried, wouldn’t of course eat salads or fruit and grumbled also if I spent too much time in the kitchen. I came home one night to find him cooking the evening meal in the frying pan, ignoring all the prepared food which I had intended to curry. I began to seethe inside. He would never, either, blackout the uncurtained windows, which annoyed me too, and it annoyed him that I insisted on blacking out. And so on. There were a dozen or more such jags daily. Yet he did try to help. Chopped wood, filled the coal scuttles, even made my bed twice and cleaned my shoes once.
Wednesday, 20 December
A week ago Hugh phoned to say he had been posted to Burma and could he come and see me again that night. He came (there was a thick fog as there has been today), stayed until Monday and is coming back for Xmas. I am happy about it all now, immensely happy, but can’t write it down (as I have to when unhappy). Strange. This should be called a Blue Moods Journal.
He has said to me, ‘Why haven’t you married? Academically speaking, would you marry me? You are the only English woman I’d ask. My first wife was a mistake of youth. Academically speaking, I’d marry you.’
Academically speaking, I would not marry Hugh, but I am very touched and flattered. But he doesn’t know me well enough yet, he needs someone like his present Greek wife Maritza – scintillating, fascinating – I could never compete with her. She met Hugh in Paris in 1940, and later again by chance in Athens in 1941. She was a café singer. Then the Germans came, and he had to move with the British Army, and she escaped to Beirut, walking barefoot over the mountains of Smyrna. He returned to Beirut with a staff job in Intelligence, but then the invasion of Italy began and he had an urge to volunteer for active service again. Will he go on obeying that urge that keeps him always on the move? I do think he is running away all the time from himself. I am but a harbour at the moment for a somewhat battered ship.
New Year’s Day 1945
A letter from Hugh which ended, ‘I miss you damnably.’ Well I miss him too, but there is nothing much we can do about it.
I have dallied with the idea of being married to Hugh, and I’d make a success of it because I’d tackle it as a full-time job demanding all my wit and intelligence and charm. I’d have to submit myself to rigorous discipline, housekeeping, catering, cooking, grooming, clothes, health all kept at 100 per cent efficiency – but without any jarring or nagging! I’d have to have some help in the house if I wanted to do any work of my own. But I’d better get on with my life as it is.
27.
Plenty of Time for Dick
Sunday, 7 January 1945 (aged thirty-five)
Have been reading Eric Gill’s autobiography. Most absorbing.
Hugh has phoned. Wonder if we shall meet again before he goes abroad? The affair is over, dead. But the friendship remains.
And having coped with the British Army it now seems possible I may have to cope with the American. That attractive young Irish New Yorker phoned again last week.143 He is stationed once more in Wycombe and says he wants to see me, and would I put him up for the night if he came over? Fantastic. Do wish someone would come and rescue me from this situation. I like making new friends and entertaining the Services enormously, but really I do not want to have affairs with every one of them.
Am in a sort of vacuum about this. I must be firm with Dick. But I thought I was going to be firm with Hugh.
The point is, is it essential to get into bed with a man before you can have a friendship (that is worthy of the name) with him? What is to prevent one going on like this, from one man to the next?
‘The barren and destructive road.’ I came upon this phrase of Eric Gill’s describing loose physical relationships almost immediately afterwards. That is just what they lead one into – a barren and destructive road. And that is what I am afraid of, have always feared. Satisfy your curiosity if you must, but don’t be tempted further by vanity, and know where the one ends and the other begins. Be strong on this. And then you may, perhaps, as Eric Gill did, ‘enter the enchanted garden of Christian marriage …’144
Friday, 19 January
Hugh has written me nearly every day from Rotherham. It has been wonderful to find his letters waiting for me every evening – warming and supporting. One person at least thinking of me pretty frequently and wanting me. Yes, still wanting me, so he says. He was expecting to receive orders for Burma, but now tells me it is all off and he is to stand by for France.
Monday, 29 January
Have been frantically busy with arrangements for our discussion group meeting at which Sir William Beveridge is to be the speaker next week.
Hugh has orders now to sail for France on Feb 6th. He thinks the war in Europe will be over in six months, Tommy thinks it’s a matter of weeks but that surrender will not be total. I think it may be longer than six months. The Germans, as Hugh says, have their ‘backs to the wall’ and are in the mood to die fighting to the end.
Tuesday, 30 January (War Diary)
Frantic day at office with Beveridge meeting arrangements. Our chairman is away with flu just to make things more difficult. Mr Oliver yesterday on Beveridge: ‘This little man, quite determined that his plan for Social Security is possible. Nothing daunts him. He is a big draw. Prepare for an overflow. You know, when his report was first published the BBC and press were told to pipe down on it. But they couldn’t.’
Have no post-war plans or ambitions. Don’t know what I shall do and may in that mood let myself be ‘directed’ if the Government goes on directing us after the war. One’s life isn’t one’s own and won’t be as far as I can see for several years yet, if ever.
Saturday, 10 February
I was about to settle down to an evening of Diary (War and this) and domesticities on my own when the phone rang. None other than that attractive young Irish-American Dick. He just invited himself over for the evening and to sleep and that was that. When he arrives at Hedgerly Corner he is to give me a ring and I shall go and collect him. That arrangement was made over two hours ago, since when I have been busy preparing food and tidying up, muttering to myself the while, ‘Fantastic, fantastic – the British Army, the American Army, but the one man I want, never.’ There is of course plenty of time for Dick to change his mind or lose his way, but he evidently intends to come one weekend and I would rather it were this than any other for the simple security reason (oh, what one can confess in a private diary!) that I have a period.
Sunday, 11 February
I dealt with Dick much as I dealt with T.H. in the summer. Just packed him off to bed and hoped he would sleep wel
l!
Monday, 12 February (War Diary)
The question I was instrumental in asking Sir William Beveridge at our big meeting last Wednesday (and his answer) was quoted by The Times, the News Chronicle and criticised severely by Maurice Webb in the Sunday Express.145
Our first rocket fell on Sunday about 5 a.m. Landing on Stoke Common, roughly a mile from my cottage. It shook me from a deep sleep and I heard the whistling sound of its descent and the explosion quite clearly. Am told one person killed, two old people taken to hospital with shock, many houses in adjoining village damaged, and ceilings in house of one of our directors down.
Tuesday, 13 February
Since there is no one I can turn to as fully as I desire on this matter these journals must be burdened once again. By the end of March High Duty Alloys intends to have rid itself of 250 of its staff, senior and junior (this M. told one subordinate, in confidence, who told it to his wife, who, being a talkative little creature, let it out to Lydia with whom she works). That I am numbered among those 250 I am positive. That Lydia isn’t I am also positive and madly jealous over. She estimates castings and has impressed M. very much by her ability – so much so that he doesn’t want to lose her, I know. They have never had any direct contact but I am sure that when the opportunity comes he’ll make the most of it. That thought fills me with sheer agony.
I am prompted by all these feelings to make a move to get out before I am politely dismissed. I hate having to do it. Uprooting myself and starting again. I have written after one advertisement for ‘Capable woman required as Assistant to Advertisement Manager’.
Thursday, 15 February
Barbara Linnett paid me a visit and told me what she had heard in confidence (and I swore not to repeat). And that was that Mr Botterell was to be offered the post of sales representative in our London offices when they open. They’ll find some other nitwit to take his place I have no doubt. I heard further that our department, being such a small one, is to be left untouched by the redundancy purge, but I should like to get that confirmed.
A Notable Woman Page 31