Why does anyone worry about ‘love’, about being loved and finding the Right Person, and about missed opportunities and ‘I’ve never had a chance?’ and ‘It isn’t fair!’? There is no need to let these moods colour your life. Love can illumine every moment of it, whether you are ‘loved’ or not. But let us not nail that poor butterfly. Make your own discoveries and keep them secret.
Today, snow fell early in the morning. Could not get up, having grown roots into the bed. Mail-order cheques amounting to over £10 awaited me. This is what maketh the heart rejoice. All down to my cat passion: nearly all my biggest and most rewarding orders are for cat books.
Lunch today supplied by my neighbour Mrs S. – lovely hot meat, two veg, treacle pud and coffee. We have had this arrangement since the summer, twice a week for 3s. 6d. a time. I cannot praise this service enough.
Sunday, 26 January
Birch trees being felled by Wee and the woodsmen burning the thin branches in huge fires. They were nice men, and gave me some long lengths too. By Friday night I knew I must have a day in bed or crack up completely. I was beginning to get the old duodenal pain again, as well as headaches and general feeling of tension, irritation and panic.
Nothing could have suited me better – smug and relaxed in my little nun’s blue and white bedroom, with four cats stretched on the eiderdown, the 5th around somewhere.
It has been a day like the one I once spent in the Sick Room at school – restorative. I think I had a poisoned heel but was not otherwise ill. I was then absorbed discovering Rupert Brooke. I believe I wrote some Journal which I still have. I can reach back over all those years and touch that day again.
Friday, 28 March
How many times do shopkeepers discuss the weather? And how many get bored to death with the subject? And what else should we speak of with our customers if weather were monotonously consistent?
Must confess this out of my system: have been giving my eczema-plagued Pepper a course of Benadryl. The capsules have slipped down quite easily, but the other night I was tired and late and consequently clumsy. She resisted and lashed out at me with her claws. I lost my temper and slapped her nose hard. With a whimper she sprang from me, and when she lifted her head there were huge tears in her eyes, slipping down her nose. I have never seen an animal cry, and she was really crying. Her expression was anguished. I could have killed myself on the spot.
Tuesday, 22 April
Yesterday I took barely 10s. I have just over £8 in my current account, and bills amounting to £30–£40 waiting to be paid. I am owed perhaps £10 – not much more.
Overtired, I wake in the small hours feeling choked, as though I’ll never be free of this situation, held in that small space as if by a vice. The only capital I can raise is tied up in Homefield. We have served notice to quit on the tenant, but solicitor has received heart-rending appeal from the tenant’s daughter. Tenant is now 81 and has chronic invalid son living with her – they cannot find other accommodation and so on and so on. It would seem to be a case that a court would view with favour, and we judged harsh landlords. I would not like to think of Ethel and Aunt Maggie in such a situation. We are not wealthy or selfish people, we don’t want to turn old and ailing people into the street. Let us see what may be done with cooperation and goodwill.
Sunday, 7 June
The struggle for money becomes so ghastly it excludes all else. I need another £100 in my current account to meet all the bills due for payment this month, and there is no hope of the business producing that much in that time. In other words, I am theoretically bankrupt, and shall have to plunder my last little bit on deposit. I’ve kept it intact, earning interest, for nearly 16 months.
I long to write again. A book about the Little B., of course. There is agitation in the book trade now to publicise bookshops nationally – a ‘Buy More Books’ campaign (I am not the only bookseller in difficulties). A light, amusing little volume, if well written, would be timely.
Tuesday, 15 July
The sourness of this summer eats into me like acid. Should I throw in my hand, give up the whole venture? Who would buy my miserable little business as it is? The cats hold me to Wee. If it weren’t for them I might feel capable of abandoning everything.
And suddenly came a near-neighbour, Little Miss H., with a basket of wonderful raspberries from her garden for me. I am more touched than I can say.
When I went into PO this morning, absorbed in the addition of stamps, nice Mr M. exclaimed, ‘You have been looking worried lately’. That my anxieties should be so obvious really shook me. I wanted to rush away somewhere and cry a lot, but there was no escape.
It is not only that I am not paying my way, nor the present difficulties of trying to work in two places and the smallness of the shop giving me claustrophobia. It is the apparent indifference of the public in general to books. They seem to be the last thing that most people ever think of buying.
Wednesday, 16 July
It is quite possible that within the next five years they will have widened the village street, which it badly needs. More and better shops will be built and local trade will improve, though our rural character will be somewhat lost. This doesn’t worry me greatly. It is a hideous village, there is nothing attractive about it at all, no buildings worthy of preservation except the Stag & Hounds, which won’t be pulled down anyway.236 In fact, good modern building should improve it vastly if planners keep in mind that we could still remain a village and don’t let Big Business get its claws into us. Or speculative builders for that matter, who are already ruining the area with suburban housing estates, badly designed and built. There seems to be no control over this sort of development whatever.
Wednesday, 23 July
Am about to try once more to stop smoking with aid of a new product called Terminex. God help me. If by this time I’m not near suicide I’ll go down on my knees and thank Him for Terminex.
I like their sales talk approach. It is all reasonable, possible and promises no miracles. It seems to be what I’ve been whining after for years, and therefore I must try it. After all, it is insane to burn away over £2 a week when one really hasn’t got it. I smoke at least 40 a day now at 3s. 3d. per 20. It could mean for me a short holiday or new clothes, Mrs Mop’s wages, Lund’s bill, the milk and laundry. I have gone without new clothes; I like a little alcohol occasionally, sweets, cream, an occasional theatre in London, but can do without them without my becoming a raving lunatic. Cigarettes however, no never. Must, must, must be able to smoke when and as often as I desire. It is this desire that I have wanted help in breaking down. I feel about to face the dentist’s chair or prison.
Penguin traveller came round to Wee this a.m., sent from the shop by Mrs H. He caught me in the lavatory. As this is next to the back door I can never pretend I’m not there, and am so used to the situation I can usually carry it off with some aplomb. A tactful kitten was attracting his earnest attention when I appeared.
He encouraged me somewhat by pointing out there is no good bookshop in Gerrard’s Cross, Beaconsfield or Slough (except for Carter & Wheeler at the far end of town). The Smiths in these towns are not adequate, run by ‘nice little men, but harassed by head office’. He could see from the sitting room that I had a genuine interest in books, and Penguins, and had me revealing my literary past and the sad tale of Lovely Peggy.
Friday, 25 July
I do believe it is going to work. Only 10 cigarettes yesterday, and not 8 today. Frightfully hungry and frightfully tired.
Sunday, 27 July
I do indeed thank God for Terminex. The craving is certainly checked. There is no longer that tormenting and positively irresistible urge to smoke continually. But I feel a little lost, as though I have nothing to do. The physical gesture of taking, lighting, holding had something soothing in it. Chewing gum and sweets help a little, but one soon tires of them. I long for meal times, I long for sleep.
Tuesday, 12 August
I am still smoking up to 10
cigs a day. I do not seem to be able to keep it much below this. But to have reduced to that amount for three weeks is quite incredible for me. The treatment itself is nearly over and I may try another bottle. I think the chemical compulsion has been checked, but not the psychological compulsion.
Parish Clerk salary and Homefield rent have both come to alleviate the financial crisis for a few weeks. The fog checking the Homefield sale shows signs of lifting also. We do not need to make a court case of it. I now learn that we can renew the agreement on a monthly basis and at a higher rent.
Wednesday, 15 October
N. has been on leave again. I went to London for a day, saw Charles Laughton in The Party. She has had a book accepted by Collins, bless her (God help us all). But really I am delighted for her sake. She has written it during her heavy school work in Ghana, about a little black boy in West Africa and his struggle to get educated. Collins think highly of it – had it read by Naomi Mitchison who wrote N. a personal letter praising it.237 Publication is next autumn, in time for the Queen’s visit, and it is to be sold in America. It seems an almost certain winner.
And now of course whatever I may say here will be interpreted as raging envy and gall and wormwood. I do not find her different: she seems to me still the same restless, volcanic, unstable, ego-bound unreasonable person she always has been. She doesn’t seem to soften, to mature in spite of all her achievements. I cannot share things with her. I am still too scared to relax with her. I am left after our meetings feeling like a tossed, bruised kitten.
Then there is B.P.238 She is another stimulating, forthright, forceful character to whom I am attracted and wish to talk to about all manner of things, but, just on the edge, fail. She is the one who talks, to me – endlessly, brilliantly, searchingly – and listens only when she wants to, never when I want to be listened to.
I long, long to find someone with their sort of intelligence, interests and outlook with whom I can really and deeply share my own, but I never do. I try to explain it away as fear: I cannot face their anger and scorn if I try to express an opinion or an idea that contradicts their own. But is it perhaps more an anxiety to please, to be pleasing, applauded, approved of? I want their approval, their favour, their love.
Sunday, 9 November
I think it was the next day that B.P. discovered me breathlessly scurrying between shop and Wee to get parcels packed for the afternoon carrier, and money in the bank by 2 p.m., sacrificing my lunch. ‘But you mustn’t do that!’ she exclaimed, and raced off to provide a meal, returning to shop with eggs baked in tomatoes and sauce in special ramekins, rice pudding, bread, tea, apple – the lot! I was very grateful for it.
I’m getting numb, go through the working day in a trance, feeling nothing, not caring. If someone said to me tomorrow, ‘Miss P., here is a thousand pounds and the shop premises you want’ I should feel nothing. I cannot do more that I am doing in the present circumstances, and they are slowly, slowly destroying me.
Friday, 21 November
I ‘pulled myself together’, put Mrs J. on duty at the shop and stayed at home to bring some order to my work room here. A miracle (apparently) was achieved. Mrs Mop can get in to clean floor. I can dust. I have things so arranged that I know, on the whole, where to find them.
Business improves slowly as Christmas approaches. I do not care now if this precious festival is over-commercialised. It is the only time in the year when I can feel sure of making a little money.
Saturday, 31 January 1959
Scrape, scrape, gasp and hope, all the time. Lucky in many things, if not as money-maker. My Mrs Heron has left me for a post as secretary to the new primary school, but her friend Mrs Faulkner has taken her place. I am very lucky indeed – she too is a married (i.e. supported) woman, interested in books, reliable, kind. In fact, I was staggered to discover that when the news went round that Mrs H. was leaving, no less than three people were after the job at the Little B. And I can’t pay as much as I pay my cleaner. (Mrs F. on phone last night: ‘You have “Cash on Delivery” down for him.’ ‘That’s the Concise Oxford Dictionary,’ I explained.)
Wireless playing ‘Stormy Weather’ – tune of the summer I went to Jamaica (or was it ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’?) I was so young, so ignorant of my instincts, which were those of a trollop. I still believe too much fuss is made about sex. I wish I could have let those instincts rip, freely and lightly, instead of forcing them into remote, romantic, dangerous daydreams. They distorted and frustrated my development, I am sure of it. Yet if I had been able to let those instincts have freedom, I should have become in this day and age what is termed a bad woman. Well really – that was the last sort of confession I expected. Just shows the potency of cheap music.
Lady Spicer’s house was bought by a friend of hers, Mrs Rundle. Mrs R. has a perfectly charming daughter with a 19-year-old son – Vera and Edward.
Am smoking again, much too much. There is no cure, no hope of salvation here.
Saturday, 28 February
Today ends an absolutely bumper Book Sale fortnight. I’ve already taken at least £30 more than I did at either of the last two national sales. It is odd: book buying is such an individual urge and so very thinly spread over the population. It seems to come in waves, independently of the economic condition of the country. Bad weather is particularly disastrous for me, with my two showcases outside. This year people have been able to potter and browse in the sunshine at leisure, and buy, bless them. I think that locally I am at last being taken seriously. The real booklovers have nosed me out – alas that they are always among the poorest in the community.
Sunday, 5 April
Have just finished Peter Wildeblood’s West End People. I think it’s gorgeous and must push it in the library – his homo associations make people a little wary.239
It must be all of six weeks since my last entry. The Dram Soc has put on Love in a Mist with some success at last, and again I looked after props. And then there’s been annual Parish and Council meetings, and a visit to the Ideal Home to see W.H. Smith’s stand, and the new little boiler I’ve decided to have in the kitchen, and stocktaking. And on Tuesday there’s a Village Hall development meeting. That seems to me a fairly full and varied programme, which I mention to reassure myself I am not the work-grubbing, money-bound recluse B.P. sometimes makes me feel.
‘Marvellous what people think is Life and what isn’t, ain’t it?’ says the recumbent clip-joint hostess to Cherry in West End People. ‘When I came out of school, I thought Life was stopping out late after midnight and going to nightclubs and having handsome foreigners licking the back of my hand. Well, I’ve seen plenty since then, and now I know what Life really is. It’s mending someone’s socks and having kids and staying in with the telly in the evening. Sounds terrible, it probably is terrible, but I just lap it up.’
Wednesday, 8 April
Went to a new hairdresser’s in Slough today. It was quite terrifying. A nice, long open salon, no cubicles. Before mirrors along one wall sat all the women whose hair had just been shampooed somewhere at back of shop, being put into curlers. Along the opposite wall sat others under dryers, placidly reading magazines. There were little tables with mirrors and chairs in the middle of the room too, and scores of little teenage girl assistants in pastel overalls attending two male operators. It was like a launderette.
I wanted to bolt as soon as I entered, but there was no escape. The till near the door was partially screened off by plants and rubbery creepers on a bamboo frame. The principal of this modern establishment is small, dark, autocratic, could be Greek, Italian, Armenian. Cut my hair himself, as the assistant I had booked the appointment with is away ill. I needed only pruning – my hair has not seen the dresser’s professional scissors for over a year – and certainly the little fellow trimmed it very well, though he took his time over it, darting away at intervals to attend to this and that and welcome another foreigner (large and fat, who disappeared up some stairs). One was reminded of a film, set
in Soho. And as I sat waiting, watching all the other women in stages of disarray, they seemed indistinguishable one from the other. We are being moulded to one pattern, made to look as the hairstylist and fashion designer dictates. We haven’t a chance to be individual.
Saturday, 25 April
Builders arrive to install new Ideal boiler.
Tuesday, 28 April
Woke at 6 a.m. and went out to outside lav. Then breakfast, and at 8.15 BATH. Have never been able to do this in all the 20 years I’ve been here.
Trying to read Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but don’t think I’m wildly interested in the vigorous working-class life of Nottingham.
Thursday, 30 April
Gregory missing since last night. No sign of him.
When, oh Lord, shall I ever show a nice balance to my credit? Never, I feel. Semi-bankruptcy is the state and lot of all honest booksellers, let us accept that.
Friday, 1 April
Just before 9, phone rang. It was Gus – Gus of all people. To say that Luigi was dead. I have been stunned all day. Sat for 15 minutes thinking, remembering dear Luigi and the fun we all had, and that she was planning a trip home next summer. Gus phones again. Luigi had died very suddenly of a haemmargh, no, I cannot spell it. Still no sign of Gregory. Am so worried but can do nothing.
Sunday, 3 May
Determined to make enquiries, I embarked with gumboots and mac, ending finally at Mrs Ken’s by the bus stop. She said at once, ‘Oh, Miss Pratt! That must be the one my husband buried yesterday … we found him by the hedge.’ He had evidently been courting next door to her bungalow, but of course was not accustomed to that vile main road. And I trudged home again, weeping, weeping in the rain.
Friday, 21 August
‘Isn’t it a lovely little shop?’ said the woman to the children with her. And Lady B. earlier in the week: ‘But its smallness is such an attraction – don’t you feel people come because of it?’ These sorts of compliments I get quite often. They help to make bearable the insults and frustration. Perhaps I should fail to create the charm that attracts the discerning in a larger shop.
A Notable Woman Page 58