Letters From Constance

by MARY HOCKING

  At lunch the man on my left talked to his neighbour about bridge and a hunter he had recently bought. The woman on my right told the woman opposite of a visit she had made to a cousin in the North. She was a dumpy little woman who reminded me of my Aunt Ada; the kind of person who spends a lifetime trying never to put a foot out of place, who is distressed if she is called upon to express an opinion on the least controversial of topics if someone else has not broken the ground for her. Yet here she was, placidly describing, as a normal handicap of wartime journeying, how she had travelled on the train concealing a rubber tyre round her waist. ‘A bicycle tyre?’ I asked. She nodded, the only occasion she acknowledged my presence. Had it been feasible I am sure she would have seen no problem in getting a car tyre past customs in this fashion. So great is my Aunt Ada’s respect for law and order that she would not have consented to carry a spoonful of tea across the border, let alone a packet. Later conversation revealed that Fergus’s father had driven his car without a licence for the last three months, presumably delaying payment until he has sold a bull.

  The party broke up after tea. During all that time not one of the guests had spoken to me. Their behaviour amazed me. One hears of people being ostracised because they are black or Jewish or GIs throwing money around, but I had not imagined it could happen to the English. I had thought that we were acceptable wherever we went.

  I began to revise my impressions of Fergus’s father. Why had he accepted me? Was he an extraordinarily enlightened Christian or an incredibly perverse Irishman? I have come to the conclusion that he is both. When Fergus and I left he took us to the station. I waved to him as the train moved out and he shouted a quotation from St Peter - I didn’t get chapter and verse.

  ‘It will be a great disappointment to him if I convert,’ I said to Fergus.

  ‘Not at all; you’ll still be English.’

  I learnt a lot at Fergus’s home. My picture of the Irish came to me mainly through songs, the boys Minstrel and Danny, and Juno and the Paycock - ‘Blessed Virgin, where were you when me darlin’ son was riddled with bullets . . .’. I was unprepared for a people, despite the blarney, totally unsentimental and giving a rather frightening hint that once engaged with them in some harmless bit of chaff there is no point at which they would consider it seemly to withdraw. It is there, in their coldly dancing eyes, the willingness to go the distance and more. I now believe in the Little People; they do not inhabit the mountains and glens, but live in every Irishman. I am going to have quite a time keeping the Little Person in Fergus quiescent. It will be a relief when I get him home to England where, I am glad to say, he intends that we should live, him being an analytical chemist and there not being much in the way of opportunity open to him in Ireland. Bejasus, I’ll be speaking the language before I know it.

  The dawn is long past. I don’t know about equilibrium, but I have found my appetite, I am very cold and my fingers are purple, but I feel better now that I have talked to you.

  Write to me when you have time. I know how busy you are, but I long to hear about this new life with all its joys and challenges which will soon confront me.

  My love to you and Miles,

  Constance

  Belfast,

  February, 1946

  My dear Sheila,

  What a difference this new government has made in the feel of the country. Perhaps you are not as aware of it, being a permanent resident, as I was coming over from Ireland. Your parents are delighted and so I expect are you. For myself, I find it hard to take Mr Attlee seriously, he is so insignificant one would pass him in the street without noticing. Aneurin Bevan I could wish more passable. My mother’s char says it is what the country needs, but she had expected when she voted Labour that Mr Churchill would still be in charge.

  It was so good to see you on that one evening, looking splendidly fit, though I do see what brother Peter meant when he said that having married a musician you were determined to give birth to a double-bass. The two men were a bit edgy, weren’t they? Never mind, there will be time later for you to get to know Fergus.

  We had a difficult time with my mother. The outcome is that we are to be married in Ireland. I am sad that Mummy will not be there, but it became apparent that a wedding in Ealing would be out of the question - marrying a Catholic is bad enough, flaunting it in the streets of Ealing would be beyond the pale. Then there would be the shame of asking friends to attend and have them make excuses or, worse still, tell her they would stand by her, as though the wedding were taking place at the Old Bailey rather than the Catholic church. She exaggerates, of course. Nevertheless, one of our neighbours, who was brought up in a Welsh valley town, told me that as a child she was threatened that if she so much as crossed the threshold of the Catholic church, the Devil would pop out from behind the altar.

  Fergus was astonishingly tolerant of all this; in fact, at times it seemed to me that he was enjoying himself. The strangest thing of all was that he and my mother got on quite well. The skill with which each managed to express the lurid views which have led people to murder one another down the centuries, without actually wounding the other, was remarkable. Looking back on it, I can see that the outcome suited them both. We are to be married in Ireland and Mummy can blame the Irish Sea for her non-attendance. I feel like an amateur singer who has taken part in a musical comedy under the impression that it was Grand Opera.

  I look forward to the time not far ahead when we may live so close that all this letter-writing can cease and we can get to know each other again.

  Offer up a few good Protestant prayers for me in the days to come. As I do for you and the baby, twins, triplets . . .

  My love to you and Miles,

  Constance

  Dublin

  May, 1946

  My dearest Sheila,

  Fergus and I are in Dublin on our honeymoon. We send joyful greetings to you and Miles and Lynne and are resolved to manage our great occasions better in future. At least we shall be present for my god-daughter’s christening.

  You mustn’t apologise for the length of your letters and certainly not for their content. I could not hear too much about the coming of Lynne. Babies have never featured much in my life and I tend to confuse them with dolls. My mother says there never was a child so prone to break her dolls; the Christmas ones were lucky if Boxing Day saw them in one piece. The result is that I regard babies as all too breakable. If Lynne doesn’t cry at the christening, her godmother can be relied upon to shake with fear when she takes the precious bundle in her arms. A fine pair we shall make!

  So, details of every stage of development, please.

  I must make this a short letter as we are off to the Abbey Theatre. My love to you all,

  Constance

  Belfast

  May, 1946

  My dear Sheila,

  The reason I did not say very much about the wedding was that it was not in itself memorable.

  I don’t think I told you about my instruction. It was too depressing to mention, even to you. He was a flinty little Irishman, not a touch of the Playboy about him, and he disliked me from the moment we set eyes on each other. He didn’t like women - except mothers and daughters, and them he preferred plaster cast. The upshot was that I became very upset. Fergus took a firm stand and said he was not going to have me dragged weeping into the Catholic Church. So he had to get something called a dispensation while I had to sign away any right to interfere in the upbringing of our children. Even then, much depended on local discretion and there was a time when it seemed that no church in the whole of Ireland would open its doors to us. Eventually, however, permission was given for us to be married in a church in Cork. The service (abridged version) was performed in the sacristy with the bare minimum of words essential to get us properly joined in the eyes of Mother Church; there was no Mass, of course, and no music to gladden the heart. We were allowed two witnesses, Fergus’s mother and father. Afterwards, they took us out to a very good dinner.

&n
bsp; When I look at the pictures of your wedding, how different it seems, with happy people surrounding the bridal couple and you and Miles gazing rapt in each other. Fergus and I are not yet rapt. The first broken promise, I thought, as the third bottle of wine was opened. To be fair, I suppose by his standards he had sufficient to drink but not too much. My standards are more exacting. Heigh-ho! We had a row on our wedding night and suddenly, just as Fergus’s rage was boiling up most awesomely, I saw how funny our situation was. For a few seconds he struggled to hold his fury tight and then it all dissolved in laughter. After that, all went surprisingly well.

  I would have liked it otherwise - music, a crowded church and me walking up the aisle, one of the few entitled to wear white at her wedding. But it was not to be and I don’t suppose it matters in the sight of God.

  We had a marvellous two days in Dublin of which the evening at the Abbey was the most memorable. The play was called Thy Dear Father; very passionate stuff with a rebellious son in love with an attractive young woman who wore scarlet and much upset the rigid Catholic family who wanted him to become a priest. What amazed me was the acting. I have been used to actors on stage behaving in a manner I never would - very elegant and sweeping, pointing their lines even when there didn’t seem to be much in the way of a point, and definitely keeping me at a distance. These people spoke and behaved as any of us might when we thought there were no outsiders present. No barrier existed between me and them; I was there in that sitting-room with them. Theatre will never be the same again.

  Are you happier now? I shall soon be able to demonstrate that all is well. Fergus is already demobilised and we shall be coming home for good in two weeks’ time. You and I must have the most tremendous celebration. I thought we might have a bonfire and burn all the letters - or do you think we should wrap them in tissue paper and save them for our children? When I reread, I doubt they will serve as a record of wartime life as there isn’t much about the war in them. Once I am settled into domesticity I intend to do some studying, lay it all out before me like a vast jigsaw which, when all the bits are fitted together, will reveal what happened, where, when and why.

  Oh, I have so many plans! Fergus and I are going to join the Questors Theatre and I should like to act with them if they’ll have me. They are a bit choosy, but, as you know, I used to be considered quite good on stage. Then I mean to join the Overseas League - get a bit of London life and brush up my French at the same time. How would you feel about that? We might do a few theatres as well.

  And - a big ‘and’ this - what about our having a few days together in Norfolk, just the two of us, before we are encumbered with children. Your parents would help with Linnie, I expect, if Miles couldn’t manage on his own. We could walk along that pebble beach which stretched into forever, remembering our youth before it’s gone quite beyond recall.

  Think on these things.

  Your excited

  Constance

  County Wicklow

  September, 1950

  My dear Sheila,

  Do you find that during the last few years when we have seen each other so often there is much that doesn’t get said while we talk with one ear cocked for controversies from the play area? Now that I have childless hours at my disposal there are thoughts I mean to share with you.

  Fergus and I are having a day by the sea. He is wandering along the quayside, talking to the fishermen, while I sit lazily on a rock. The children are in the care of their grandmother.

  This gap in our letter writing puts me in mind of that scene change in The Duchess of Malfi when a couple of lines suffice to tell the playgoer it is a few years and two children later. If you are tardy returning after the interval, you are never going to get a clear picture of the Duchess’s family life. I have an odd feeling of having missed out on something in my own life. When Fergus and I returned from the war I thought endless possibilities stretched before us. What I failed to realise was that one of the possibilities was marriage and children and I had already chosen it - plunged into it, might be a better way of putting it. The water closed over my head with the coming of Dominic. From time to time I surfaced, recognised a few blurred landmarks (such as the privet hedge which bounds our block of flats from the outer world) and submerged again to give birth to Kathleen. Now, here I am with time and space for reflection and nothing upon which to reflect. I seem to have grown into a wife and mother while my mind was occupied with learning to cook, nurture, clean house and children, service husband. It’s too late to ask if this is the direction I meant my life to take - I am a quarter of the way down the path already. I watch Fergus’s receding figure as he goes off to work leaving me hedged in with the children and I say to myself, ‘This is for life.’ It’s not that I want to change him for anyone else, only that I feel there are a lot of questions that should have been asked before I let myself in for this till death us do part business. People make more enquiries about travel facilities before setting out on two weeks’ holiday than I made about a lifetime’s journey.

  Do you ever have these feelings, you who seem to have plunged fathoms deeper than I? No, of course you don’t. Tell me your secret, or give me a clue which will set me off in search of the treasure. Is it that you now have a house while we still belong to that unrooted community of flat-dwellers?

  Certainly, the house sets you apart. Some houses look outward to such an extent they are little more than watching-posts, like the jungle tree houses where people crouch to observe the animal life. Nothing goes on inside, it is all happening out there. Other houses close around one tight as a badger’s sett. Yours is neither of these. In imagination now I walk down an ordinary suburban street, past semi-detached villas which fill in the spaces between Victorian houses. Flowers and cats look out, a woman sews close up against a window to catch the last of the light. A child’s scooter is upturned on a path and further on there is a wheelbarrow full of autumn gold. A man is clipping a hedge and he tells me it is the ‘last time this year, with any luck’. A radio is playing in a garage across the road. I come to one of the Victorian houses, standing alone behind a hedge which hasn’t come in contact with clippers for a long time. The gate is open because it doesn’t close. I walk through undergrowth to a door half hidden by creeper. At my approach the door opens, which is a relief as it doesn’t have a knocker and the bell-rope is no longer a part of any ringing system.

  As in a fairy story, I step out of the everyday world. I look around the magic place I have entered and realise that the fairy stories are wiser than I had understood. For this is a magic which we could all enjoy, if only we would create our own enchantment. Time is the first thing to master. It has to be understood that time, in the Druce household, is different from time as most of us know it. I, for example, am the slave of mealtimes. On a Sunday all my energy is devoted to ensuring that the steaming cauldron and the members of my family arrive at the same place at the same time. Whereas in your home, meals wait on the convenience of the inhabitants. And then there is the matter of furnishing. Your rooms are not designed to meet the spatial requirements of sofa, armchairs and table, but those of piano, harp, viola and music stands. When Fergus and I move I shall nag until he has put up shelves. ‘If you must have so many books, you should at least be willing to provide accommodation for them.’ You, on the other hand, make no problem of this; books are stacked on flat surfaces, mostly the floor, and one thinks nothing of it but simply treads over or around them.

  Houses where people aim for conventional standards and fall short are damp with failure. But your house answers a different need - I haven’t yet discovered what - and it is joyful. You say that you made a contract with Miles: he could compose and play music at all hours of the day and night, Linnie and Toby (do you only plan to have the two?) could grow up knowing that the rhythm of their life must be woven into their father’s periods of creativity, you would breakfast at noon and dine at midnight, with two provisos, first that he did not look for the conventional housewifely comfort
s, second, that your need to set time aside for poetry should be respected. All very proper to a fairy story where provisos are important and never to be disregarded. I admire you for this. What some people might regard as chaos I see as a great act of creativity, the making of your own individual world. I could never do it, I who am a slave to order.

  I love your secret world. Half of my world shuts the front door on me and the children each weekday morning not to return until seven at the earliest, having refreshed himself on the way home. It infuriates me that he isn’t rushing home to talk to me. But then I have nothing to talk about except nappies and feeds and feeds and nappies. You inhabit Miles’s world. You prove to me that one does not have to open secret panels or travel to distant lands to find enchantment, and although I can’t achieve it myself, I feel a need to have some small part in it. And this leads me to my one concern. Is there room in fairyland for people who come and go; or is there a need to protect it from the taint of mortality? In other words, are friends welcome? I did feel that Miles regarded me as an invading force when I came over for the day last month. Dominic was a bit troublesome but, after all, Linnie did hit him quite hard.

  Tell me true. Write one letter before we meet and are engulfed by squabbling children.

  My love,

  Constance

  Ealing

  October, 1950

  Dearest Sheila,

  I was delighted to find your letter awaiting me on my return. You tell me that I write better when I’m down to earth. My trouble is I am not content with earth. I really do find in your home an element of magic for which I yearn. However, I take what I imagine to be your point, that I should be making my own kind of magic.

  I’m sorry to have called forth an explanation which you hadn’t wanted to give. It must be difficult for you. Miles being so possessive, never wanting the neighbours to so much as show a face above the garden fence and resenting your parents’ visits. Fergus, on the other hand, never lets the neighbours go until the early hours of the morning if they are rash enough to cross our threshold. Most of them haven’t his stamina when it comes to night talk and I watch in alarm as their faces go yellow with fatigue. He isn’t a chatterer, make no mistake about that. He likes to get deep into his subject, like a diver moving about in a subterranean world. Your father is one person who can keep him company down there, among weird fronds and reefs beyond which fantastic fish may lurk. He left here at two this very morning. I said to Fergus, ‘What did you find to talk about all that time?’ He said it was nothing that would interest me.