Letters From Constance

by MARY HOCKING

  I enjoyed exploring the many squares whose buildings offered an interesting contrast to their London counterparts. For one thing, every house is different, owing, it would seem, not to the chance of passing centuries but to individual whim. Every houseowner must have been allowed his own design; and so gables may be stepped, bell-shaped, pointed, while the distribution and style of window and balcony is delightfully haphazard. The eye lingers over details but takes away no large-scale impression. The squares are quiet; there is comparatively little traffic and no surging crowds; one can hear bird-song. Yet there is not that sense of peace which a Regency terrace can impose on the hectic London scene by virtue of the harmony of its ordered lines.

  The grandiose statues represent huge golden figures bringing civilisation to brutish kneeling natives. Kathleen gave me a lecture on the subject. ‘Belgium came late to nationhood and grasped what was still up for grabs with the awesome self-importance of a small country stretching beyond its means.’ Having delivered herself of this statement, she went on to say, as if warning against any further indiscretion on my part, ‘You will have to be careful what you say in front of Georges. He is rather touchy. Whatever you do, don’t trot out any Flemish words you may have acquired.’

  ‘Have you had arguments with Georges?’ I asked when we were drinking chocolate in a café in the Grande Place.

  ‘I try to humour him for Gillian’s sake. He comes from a French¬speaking area and he thinks the Flemish are only one degree more acceptable than the Moroccans.’

  I listened to her talking about Georges and Gillian. ‘Nothing is of any value to Gillian until she has assured herself that others covet it. I let her see that I envy her the companionship, not the spare-time loving, but the sharing of the business which is what they really pour themselves into. And I praise his bread endlessly.’ It was obvious, listening, that what Gillian really wants from Kathleen is a little adjectival inexactitude on the subject of Georges. She might as well ask for the moon.

  How different we are, I thought. I talk because I love the sounds and rhythms of speech and I write because I like to see words bounce off the page. Much of the time I am not saying what I mean but rather covering my trail, hiding my thoughts, protecting my feelings; I pretend to be amused when I am angry, to be sympathetic when I am impatient, I profess to understand what confuses me and I insist that I do not understand what is perfectly clear, if unpalatable. In my darker moments, I fear that I use language not to communicate but to project to others an image of myself which suits me at that particular time. A process has gone on all my life aimed less at achieving greater lucidity than at the strengthening of a will to evade, trivialise, conceal, compromise, distort. It sometimes seems that a barrier has grown up between that depth where true feeling lies and the apparatus which processes words.

  Kathleen deals straight. She has that uncompromising courage which risks losing the good opinion of others and will not give an inch to win favour. She holds nothing back, never takes cover. Anger darkens her eyes, pleasure brings a flush to her cheeks, hope trembles on her lips. Small betrayals wound her deeply; of larger betrayals I know nothing but I suspect they have been experienced. I wonder anyone can live so exposed. I am afraid she will not marry. Men get less brave as women grow stronger. My fear for her is that she will take on some quite inadequate man; despite her abrasiveness, the mothering impulse in her is strong. Why, if women are so determined to be free, do they allow themselves to be snared by this oldest of all urges?

  ‘You are worrying about me, aren’t you?’ she challenged suddenly. ‘You have to have something to worry about and now you’re going to settle down to a good worry about me. There is no need. I am managing.’

  ‘My darling, I want you to do more than just manage.’

  Her eyes filled with tears. I longed to comfort her, but she is one of those people who can cry and at the same time make it quite clear that no one is to come close. I remember her as a child, weeping in the garden, with all of us standing as if an unseen circle had been drawn around her inside which we must not step.

  ‘Tell me in your own time,’ I said, though I am not hopeful that she will.

  Gillian has a room near the bakery. She and Georges are not living together, but they greeted us on the steps of the bakery as if they were a married couple. It was plain that she now belonged to him. He is a large, seemingly benevolent man with a dull red face and full red lips. I can see that some women might find him physically attractive. He was impeccably polite to Fergus and myself while remaining impersonal. Kathleen tells me that Belgians do not like foreigners. In my brief time here I have observed that whereas in Spain one is as much aware of the Spanish as their buildings, here in Brussels the Belgians seem strangely absent; a provincial people not at home in an international capital. This, I suspect, rather than active dislike, explained the reserve in Georges’s manner.

  There was nothing reserved about the meal, which consisted of a seafood hors-d’oeuvre so generous I took it to be the main course; a beef casserole which I would have expected to serve ten people; followed by delicious light, crisp waffles. Georges and Gillian loomed over us as we ate, like creatures of doubtful identity in a fairy story. I knew that I was undergoing some sort of test and that if I failed to partake fully of this meal a dreadful penalty would be exacted. Certainly, I should lose my daughter for ever. I don’t know how Fergus and Kathleen felt about it, but I noticed that they, too, ate everything that was put before them. By the time coffee was served I was convinced that I should shortly die of heart failure.

  Gillian and Georges showed us over the bakery and took us into the building next door which Georges has recently acquired and which will become a pâtisserie, serviced by Gillian. As we looked and listened I began to revise my opinion of Kathleen’s attitude to Gillian and Georges. I see now how important is her praise of his bread, how heroically she answers the constant demands for approval, surprise, awe and mystification as they explain the wonders they will perform in bakery and kitchen.

  We insisted on walking back to Kathleen’s flat and I wished the distance twice as great. ‘They won’t expect you to do it again,’ Kathleen assured me. ‘When you see Gillian tomorrow she will be on her own and you’ll be lucky if you get a croissant for lunch.’

  ‘He seems a bit dull,’ I said when we were back in her flat and I was lying on the mattress, trying not to listen to the thumping of my heart. Fergus was still walking round and round the little garden in the centre of the square. ‘Do you think she will be happy with him?’

  ‘Gillian has unplumbed depths of dullness. Together they will produce a batch of children shaped like cottage loaves.’ Dullness notwithstanding, Kathleen is fond of Gillian and seems to have a need of her very stolidity. From snatches of conversation, I gather she often goes to see her sister and confides in her. It is as if Gillian provided an anchor for this restless sibling.

  Thursday

  We had hoped to go to Brugge with Gillian and Kathleen. Gillian, however, was affronted by the suggestion that she could spare the time. ‘You don’t take my work seriously. If I worked in an office, like Kate, you wouldn’t expect me to take time off.’

  I pointed out that Kathleen had, in fact, taken time off to be with us. Gillian did not hear; she has for some time suffered from selective deafness.

  So Kathleen and Fergus went to Brugge and I spent the day in Gillian’s tiny kitchen, watching her perform miracles at the pastry- board. A rolling-pin seems to give her self-confidence and an authority not far removed from bossiness. We talked more easily than ever before. She was a pretty child, with that curly fair hair and the big blue eyes, and now, although she is well on the way to being fat, she still retains a certain daintiness; her feet are small and those pastry-making hands are light and delicate. Her mind is as sharp as her pastry-cutters and I was surprised to find her assessment of her siblings so shrewd.

  ‘Dom is so pushy because you were always taking him down a peg, without noticing t
hat he wasn’t many pegs high.’

  ‘That makes me sound rather formidable.’

  She didn’t hear this, but went on, ‘While the one who really needed to be taken down a peg was Pegeen.’ I noticed that if she couldn’t shorten a name, she lengthened it. ‘I know you think she is the happiest natured of us all, but it’s easy to be happy when one is so generally admired.’

  ‘I never thought you noticed anyone but James.’

  ‘You see a lot when people think you aren’t looking.’

  ‘And Kathleen? She doesn’t seem very happy. Is it a man?’

  ‘Kate can never settle for what’s on offer.’ She was stretching strudel pastry with a recklessness which suggested a certain brinkmanship in her approach to her art. ‘I could tell at once when I met Georgio that he was the sort to marry and have a family. Kate never asks the right questions. She is hopelessly romantic and easily taken in.’

  ‘Is he a bad lot, this man?’

  Here I give you her answers and my responses. I am still too shocked to sort out my thoughts.

  ‘You weren’t all that impressed, were you?’

  ‘Impressed by whom? There were so many’

  ‘Hugh, of course. That’s why she came out here. To get over him.’

  ‘Hugh?’

  ‘Harpo’s Hugh. Didn’t you ever notice? She went white whenever his name was mentioned.’

  ‘But he’s years older than her, apart from being totally unsuitable.’

  ‘He’s younger than Harpo. He would have been in his late thirties when he came that Christmas. Kate was eighteen. He really is quite attractive, with that wistful, appealing look - “Help me; I’m lost and you alone can save me.” Don’t look so upset. He was gentle and considerate. She feels tremendously indebted to him.’

  ‘And what, pray, did he get in return?’

  ‘The usual thing, plus comfort and understanding.’ She plaited the strudel pastry briskly. ‘He told her what a bad risk he was, unable to sustain a personal relationship, doomed always to hurt those whom he loved - such as poor Harpo. I believe in taking a person at their word, but Kate thinks that if they can see the bad in themselves, they must be looking for something better. I told her, “He’s insuring himself against the day when he will break your heart; then he will shake his head and say sadly that he had warned you. And you will think - another failure and I’m responsible.” ’ She put the strudel on a baking sheet in the oven. ‘And that is what happened and she was desperately grieved for him and his pain. She can’t bear to think of the wasted years ahead of him.’

  ‘How was it I knew nothing of this?’ I had always imagined I was close to Kathleen.

  ‘It started off slowly. He got one or two books that she needed and then she began to call at the shop when she was in London staying with Dom and Manny.’

  ‘So they know about it?’

  ‘Good Heavens, no! Dom is a terrible prude now he’s married. He thought it was a matter of tracking down secondhand books. And that’s all it was until some years later when it flared up. Hugh’s not constituted to keep a lire burning steadily. I don’t think it would have lasted long if it hadn’t been for Steve’s death. He was a great help to her over that.’

  ‘She hardly ever talked to me about it.’

  ‘It wasn’t always easy at home. Sometimes we couldn’t reach you and Daddy. Then, when you were able to talk about it, it wasn’t the right moment for us. We couldn’t even talk to one another much. Jim was always angry; if you tried to say anything he thrashed out.’

  ‘You used to be so close to James. It must have been very hard to find you couldn’t share this with him.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’ She accepted this much as she might a comment on the making of strudel pastry. I think perhaps she is one of those people who are able to discard whatever is of no further use to them.

  ‘How do you think he will cope with the celibate life?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s up to him. At least he shot his bolt before taking it on.’ She answered my unspoken question. ‘That silly girl, Selina.’

  She was preparing to make choux pastry. I wondered whether this orgy of pastry-making was for my benefit or whether it was her daily routine. I felt very sad and yet oddly comforted by the cooking smells and the sight of the bowls and flour and eggs and butter and Gillian presiding over them, efficient as a hospital matron.

  ‘Can I make coffee?’ I asked humbly.

  ‘There’s the remains of breakfast coffee in that jug. And there are two croissants if you would pop them in the top oven.’

  ‘We haven’t talked about Cuillane,’ I said when she finally sat down at the table.

  ‘Cuil’s coming over next month.’ I noticed that she spoke about her brothers and sisters as if they were her possessions. I had the feeling that the centre of our family had moved to Brussels.

  ‘No man in her life?’ I asked, curious to see her reaction.

  ‘I’d be surprised, wouldn’t you?’ We did not pursue this subject.

  The kitchen was hot and steamy and it was late afternoon before she could be persuaded to come for a walk. I tried to tell her how pleased Fergus and I were for her, but whatever I said she wanted more. It was not enough that she was happy to have found Georges, she must be seen to be more fortunate than anyone else. ‘We shan’t be like Manny and Dom. She doesn’t understand anything about his work. Georgio and I will share everything.’ And later, ‘It is much nicer living in our street than in the square where Kate is, where half the houses are let to foreigners. You might as well not be in Belgium if you are going to live in a place like that.’

  Fergus and I took Gillian and Kathleen out to a meal in the evening. Gillian chose the eating place which, she said, provided good Belgian cooking. It was indeed good. By the time we return I shall have put on half a stone in an effort to please Gillian.

  Friday

  And all to no avail. Just as we are being so good and supportive to Gillian, Toby and Peg arrive and make this announcement which must already have gladdened your heart. ‘We thought it would be marvellous to celebrate while you are here with Kathleen and Gillian,’ Peg said, ignoring the fact that it was to celebrate Gillian’s engagement that we had come to Brussels.

  Gillian was furious. How could her union with a Belgian baker compare with the union of my daughter to your son? How indeed? Peg is unrepentant. ‘I don’t see why two members of the family can’t be happy at the same time.’ We tried to explain that Gillian might have wanted time alone with her happiness, but Peg dismissed this as selfishness.

  We suggested dinner in the evening. Gillian and Georges refused to join us, which was probably as well since as far as Toby and Peg are concerned no one has ever been in love before. I note, however, that the matron already looks out of the enraptured maiden’s eyes, ready to take over their lives. Do you mind Toby being taken over?

  They are aware that they will not have a lot of money, but Peg informs us scornfully that money is not necessary for the raising of a large family. She talks to me as if I had never given birth. I realise that not a great deal of humour has gone into the making of this loving child; but she has other qualities to stand her in good stead. She is a natural home-maker and she is tenacious and physically very strong. Your Toby seems made in the same mould. They will become loving, devoted, rather serious parents, these children of ours; they will take their brood on walking holidays in the Himalayas, the girls and Peg pigtailed and the boys and Toby ponytailed. They will travel in a minibus through hostile terrain and we shall spend much of our time on our knees praying for their safe return. Tell me, Sheila, is this how you see their future?

  Poor, poor Gillian. Or perhaps not. Although she is so resentful and can seem dissatisfied, I get the impression she is a natural émigré and will shed few tears amid the alien corn.

  We shall have so much to talk about when next we meet. Let it be soon. Come to us next month if your schedule permits.

  Fergus says I am to give his love
to our in-law.

  Much love from me,

  Constance

  Sussex

  September, 1983

  My dear Sheila,

  You say ‘No, you mustn’t worry about me - not drowning but waving.’ If you weren’t so far out the misunderstanding would not arise. I had begun to take for granted your presence in our home over the period of Peg’s marriage and the coming of Imogen, but I accept that you cannot live ‘on the fringes of other people’s lives’. It was stupid of me if I gave that impression; but you must know by now that you are part of the main programme, not a fringe event in our lives.

  Mightn’t it be nearer the truth to say that we exist on the fringe of your life? For some reason, you now find it necessary to distance yourself from your fellow creatures, be they people from the village, publishers, lifelong friends or your own children. When I read your poems - and here you speak a truth not possible in any other means of communication - I sense a shift in your perception of life. Dear Sheila, I, too, have been forced to change my own perception, limited though it is, and I shall respect your need to keep a space around you, to explore the darkness, or whatever writers do. Only don’t be too rash. Remember that all those years ago Miss Addiscombe praised your tenacity in hanging on to the rock. Don’t let yourself be carried out of sight of land.

  In the absence of any other metaphors, I now hold my peace.

  With love and a little anxiety,

  Constance

  Sussex

  September, 1983

  My dear Sheila,

  You tell me that you have always believed in accepting the gifts of life and that our friendship is one of the most precious of those gifts. This gives me great joy and the confidence to let go. I know I have a tendency to cling, and not only to people; Fergus has spent half a lifetime gently prising my fingers apart so that first one cherished principle and then another can make its escape.