Letters From Constance

by MARY HOCKING

  You say that the last thing one has to let go is oneself. Not a very acceptable idea today, when on all sides we are told that we have a duty to find ourselves, realise ourselves, fulfil ourselves. But you are trying to get rid of a clutter of hopes and fears and ambitions, and the dependence ‘more deadly than drugs’ on constant anticipation of small pleasures. You see yourself as forever dancing down a path offering little inducements and bribes to an unseen person whom you wish to tempt to become the slave of the pleasures of the next moment, and the moment after that, but never of the given moment. This, I would have said, is more true of me - if not pleasure-seeking, then forever planning ahead: meals, housework, visit of children, visit to children, theatre, car service (remind Fergus), relaxation at end of day with gin and tonic. . . . Oh yes, you are right, the person who tempts, thwarts, corrupts, brazenly faces one eye to eye in the mirror.

  But I am not, you say severely, to imagine you engaged in a grotesque endeavour to become a saint; and you cite as proof your continuing love for Ned. What you are doing, you would have me believe, is making a common-sense accommodation with life as it has been presented to you. ‘I am an OAP and certainly no one looking at me would doubt it for one moment. What has such a scarred old battleaxe to do with the cosy comforts with which the widowed ladies in the village surround themselves?’ I can hear Mrs Thurrock replying, silver curls bobbing emphatically over neatly manicured hedge, ‘Give yourself regular little treaty, cosset yourself. And whenever you feel depressed take yourself to the hairdresser.’ Life tugs you in a different direction. You are convinced that if we can only step outside the world which is limited by our own hopes and hungers, we would find a freedom awaiting us beyond all our imaginings. It may be so. I am sometimes dimly aware of its existence beyond the web I have spun for myself. Fare forward, voyager.

  I like to think of you at your desk, honing words, in springtime, the scent of blossom in the room; or sitting in the orchard in summer, shelling peas; I can bear to think of you in autumn, dead leaves crisp beneath your feet as you walk lame in the wood; but in winter I cannot reconcile myself to your isolation in that damp cottage and I recoil from the thought of the weekly shopping expeditions, you driving (badly, one has to say) that ancient car along icy roads.

  If you must, you must. Should you relent, come to us for Christmas.

  Love,

  Constance

  Sussex

  February, 1984

  My dear Sheila,

  I note that although I am not allowed to worry, this prohibition does not apply to you. Fergus’s mother was nearly one hundred and more than ready to go. There was no cause for sadness.

  Fergus and I are well. The despair which at one time threatened us seems to have spent itself; or perhaps something else has happened which we don’t understand. Sufficient to say that we are close again. The silences, of which there are more, are shared and healing. I think the children find us a bit boring. They used to talk about us individually. Mother this, Father quite other; now they more often refer to us as the parents. I love having them with us, but I must admit to loving them more than ever when they are away.

  Left to ourselves we should have reclined happily in some reedbank, safe from the ebb and flow of the tide. We have to thank our children for steering us firmly into the mid-stream of modern life and subverting every attempt on our part to make for calmer waters. This, of course, is what the young are for, a perpetual shot in the arm to prevent those of mature years from regressing until such time as their poor old brains wear out and they drift irreversibly into second childhood.

  I go out to dinner parties and listen to some old admiral condemning all the things in modern life that aren’t to my taste either and then I am amazed to hear myself holding forth in a manner which would have the complete approval of Kathleen. In the last few weeks I have heard myself advocating - no, that, Fergus says, is not the right word; I never go so far as to advocate anything, I simply question other people’s advocacies. So, I have questioned the survival of marriage as an institution, the integrity of any local government officer and particularly each and every officer in the rates department, the impartiality of the Bench (of which the admiral is a member), the credentials of any party to govern; I have cast doubts on the propriety of any English court hearing a case involving an Irishman and, having become liverish on bad wine, I seem to recall hearing myself making a case for the Ayatollah.

  Our spiritual adviser, James, is a curate in an East End Parish. A strange area in comparison with which Brixton (where Kathleen now works) is as English as toasted crumpets. In Brixton, Marks & Spencer carry on bravely, but here I saw only dingy cafés and dark little shops in premises which looked as if they hadn’t recovered from the last bombing raid. There was a pub called The Grave Maurice with a sign, in much better condition than anything around it, representing a, gentleman who would have been more comfortable hanging in the National Gallery. Nearby a period house stood isolated on an island of rubble. Side streets with splendid names, such as Greatorex Street, dwindled into dusty anonymity.

  James lives in an uncomfortable, dreary presbytery overlooking a public lavatory, but it will be years, if ever, before such things worry him. He is still of an age when he expects to transform the world. Kathleen, on the other hand, now seems to have limited her ambitions to the transformation of Europe, about which she talks at some length. She visits Brussels frequently, sometimes going over for the day at the weekend. ‘You are a most devoted godmother,’ I told her. ‘Gillian must be delighted.’ She finds it difficult to accept praise when it is merited; unearned, it is intolerable. I discovered that it is not the infant Henri who draws her to Brussels but a Czech journalist with a name I suspect I must learn to pronounce.

  Are you satisfied that all is well here? Am I now allowed to express a few anxieties of my own? We are delighted about the trip to America; but even Fergus was taken aback by the itinerary. Americans are cannibalistic in their attitude to writers; don’t let them devour you.

  We look forward to hearing about it - from your lips rather than your pen - on your return.

  Love,

  Constance

  Sussex

  November, 1984

  My dear Sheila,

  I am sorry that the past should have been lying in wait for you on your return from the New World. Toby would not speak of it, but Linnie came to see us in some distress. She and Pavel attended the memorial service, which only occasioned more distress. Did you know that she wrote to tell him of the birth of Anita, hoping he would want to see his granddaughter, but received no reply? I had imagined she had kept the newspaper cuttings for you to see, but I suppose she wanted to spare your feelings. She has never been able to accept that her mother is as tough as old boots.

  I was sitting in the garden topping and tailing gooseberries when my eye happened on the words ‘He was for some time married to Sheila Douglas, the poet, by whom he had two children.’ This was followed by the statement that the break-up of the marriage was said by close friends (did he have any?) to have occasioned him great distress. Then came a piece about Joey, who was described as a devoted wife, surrounding him with the love and understanding his restless spirit craved. There was a long dissertation on the music, from which I gathered that musical opinion is divided, some critics preferring his later work while others consider that Last Thoughts in the Tuileries Gardens had a composed, lyric purity which he never again attained. Or words to that effect. Apparently, he had been ill for some years. Did you know that? Unsurprisingly, Josie nursed him devotedly throughout his final illness, during which he was prey to bouts of severe depression. The concluding words struck a chill into me. ‘Those who were privileged to visit them at this time will always remember her astonishing serenity.’

  I will say no more.

  Before you went away you promised to stay with us on your return. You have always been good about keeping promises, so we expect to see you soon.

  Love,
/>   Constance

  Dublin

  June, 1985

  My dear Sheila,

  You must imagine me sitting on the grass in a little park in Sandymount, not so very far from the house where Fergus and I stayed when we got engaged. The place has not changed a great deal; but I am here with my grandson - your grandson - our dear Matthew.

  Our not-so-dear Imogen is investigating a trough where a stream should run but has mysteriously dried up. Matthew would like to join her. Cuillane is dealing with this situation.

  ‘I think I’d rather you didn’t do that, Imogen. Not while you’ve got that pretty dress on.’

  ‘Pretty dress,’ repeats Imogen approvingly.

  ‘And you got so dusty yesterday, remember?’

  ‘Yes, I did get dusty.’ A pleasant reminiscence, this.

  ‘And there’s a lot of broken glass down there - and broken glass isn’t my thing.’

  A pause while Imogen studies the broken glass.

  ‘And we don’t want Matty to cut himself, do we?’

  Imogen comes trotting across the grass to me. ‘I didn’t play in the stream today ’cos there’s broken glass there and Matty might cut hisself.’

  ‘That’s a sensible girl.’

  Later, she will tell Peg what a sensible girl she is; she may even tell her that broken glass isn’t Cuillane’s thing.

  Later is when I am writing this, of course; but the present tense is so much more immediate and I want to make it immediate for you as Cuillane comes to sit beside me on the grass. We watch Imogen playing at being a grown-up in charge of Matthew; this involves much shouting and foot-stamping and the giving of orders nearly all of which begin with the word ‘don’t’.

  ‘How negative we seem to children,’ Cuillane observes. ‘And aggressive.’

  She herself has never been aggressive and I am surprised to find that she is not negative, either. She has a grave, considering face and sees no need to entertain; but she still has that lightness of mind which enables her to dance over issues that Kathleen worries at. There is a stillness within her. When I am with her she gives the impression that I can have all I need of her time; she is completely at my disposal here, sitting on the grass in a little park. I recognise this as a professional rather than a filial attitude.

  ‘Peg is having her children very quickly, isn’t she?’ I say, after Imogen has been prevented from administering corporal punishment to Matthew. ‘Two here and a third on the way.’

  ‘I don’t think I have ever seen anyone so happy.’

  This is not said in envy. Cuillane has something which is different from happiness; that has been the really unexpected thing I have found here, this gift of which she is possessed. I used to feel she lived in the world of her scholarship; the last of my children I ever imagined working in a centre for . . . ‘How do you describe your clients? Misfits, maladjusted, mentally ill . . .’

  ‘They are people who cannot lit into, or adjust to, or see any reason to accept, what we call normal patterns of behaviour.’

  She has studied for seven years while working at the centre; now she is a Jungian analyst and seems, in some ways, the most fulfilled of all my children.

  ‘I had such dreams for you. I used to imagine myself carelessly letting drop the fact that my daughter was the warden of a women’s college; I believe I even imagined you Baroness Byrne.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘It was a selfish dream, I can see that now.’

  ‘All dreams are by nature selfish; we don’t dream other people’s dreams, do we?’

  When she returns from the toilets with Matthew, I ask the question which has been so long in my mind. ‘I thought of your coming here as some kind of sacrifice to Stephen. Was that silly of me?’

  ‘Not a sacrifice. It was as though I had always been asleep and when he died, I woke up. That’s all.’

  There is much more than that. Qualities of love and tenderness have been released in her, tempered, I am assured by one of her colleagues, by a steely determination not to be manipulated.

  ‘Are they manipulative, your clients?’

  For the first time, she laughs. ‘They are the most manipulative creatures on God’s earth.’

  She is no longer my child. She has separated herself from her family and, I suspect, from all personal attachments; but she has done it with such deftness that no one has been hurt, and although there is now a distance between us, it is not to be confused with emptiness; energy and brightness fill the space. My tired old heart dances in her company. But I don’t understand. Fergus understands and I have an idea that you will understand; to me, it is a mystery.

  I am so sorry you weren’t well enough to join us. It has been a good time. I find there are no ghosts here, only young people. There has been sadness, of course; sitting on the beach where, long ago, I wrote to you about the man Fergus Byrne who promised to be rather important in my life. ‘How young we were,’ he said. I reminded him, ‘I was twenty-six and you were going on thirty.’ Stephen never got that far; but for a long time I have been trying to tell myself that it is not the distance one covers which counts and I seem to have reached a stage where I believe it.

  Oh, why aren’t you here? It’s America that has done the damage. Gather strength; then, to make up for this cancelled visit, come to Brussels with me. I warn that Gillian is an unrelenting cook, so perhaps you should starve in preparation. Henri and Georges junior are as tubby as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

  We all send our love,

  Constance

  P.S. I remember that you once said you wanted to visit the war cemeteries and I will ensure that suitable plans are made, if only you will come. But isn’t John buried in Normandy?

  Sussex

  October, 1985

  My dearest Sheila,

  So, it was the man with the Red Setter. I’m glad you allowed me to stand beside you at his grave. I can’t help but wonder what your life might have been had he lived; but I know you are right when you say we can’t live in the land of might-have-been. Life is as it is. I will not ask any questions. There are things in my own life which have never found expression in these letters.

  It was a rather tiring week. I do hope you are recovered now. Belgian food, as well as being plentiful, is rather rich.

  I am glad you liked Kathleen’s sombre Czech and will pass your message on to her.

  Much, much love,

  Constance

  Sussex

  March, 1986

  My dear Sheila,

  Dominic is to become a silk. I am sure there is a proper way to say this, but the important thing is to get it said, since your godson will expect rather a lot in the way of congratulation. A poem? You can allow yourself a little irony, he won’t notice. His daughter Teresa was with us last week. Sixteen, the uncommunicable age; all over the place, like a sunburst, not centred. To think that in such a few years it will all be over, the dancing lights will go out, the stars stop shooting, the fireworks the down, and a solid young person will emerge who won’t change much over the next twenty years.

  Gillian gave birth to a daughter, Claudia, in January. Peg was with us last month with baby John. Did you know she was pregnant again? Gillian writes that Dominic is wrong to have had only three children over such a long period and that Peg is wrong to have had too many children in so short a time.

  It seems to come at me like waves of the sea, this endless process of birth; and although it gives me joy to hold a baby in my arms again, I begin to be tired. Tasks which I once did as naturally as breathing now require forethought and still they are an effort. ‘I wonder if I am becoming ill,’ I asked Fergus. He said, ‘No, we are growing old.’ Even he complains of the noise the children make. He says he has always complained, but to himself; now, with age, he feels he can be more outspoken. Dear God, is that what lies in store? A more outspoken Fergus. We have made a pact that we shan’t grow old gracefully.

  Oh, does it frighten you, growing old and less able a
nd worn down by the hungry generations who are so sure we are indestructible?

  I tend now to talk of a vanished, more peaceful world; but in reality it is I who have banished that world. When I fling a shawl over the TV and put my feet up on the couch and listen to music - Delius particularly - time slows down, the rhythms of life are different, and those invaders who sit in that tiny box asking important people questions on my behalf I wouldn’t dream of asking, they are gone. I am aware as I listen that there is a tight knot in my stomach which, at the very first note, begins to unravel. I can feel it being drawn out from my navel; I wouldn’t be surprised to see a ball of string, unwound on the floor, flowing down from me, by the time the last note of Brigg Fair dies away.

  Peg and Toby reported finding you very tired. I recommend the music cure. If it doesn’t work, you must see a doctor. Promise? This has been going on rather a long time.

  My love,

  Constance

  P.S. I have just opened a letter from Kathleen. She is to marry the Czech. You were right; he is more moral than she.

  Sussex

  May, 1986

  My dear Sheila,

  Harpo telephoned on her return from the hospital late last night. It must have been a shock for her, so she was probably a bit alarmist. I expect it is an ulcer; you haven’t treated your stomach with any more consideration than the rest of your body. I thank God that Harpo was with you and acted so quickly.

  I have been in touch with Linnie and Toby and we are all agreed that you must stay with one or another of us - probably here as there is more room and less noise - while you recuperate.

  Should you be in hospital long, we will come down.

  Our love and prayers,

  Constance

  Sussex

  May, 1986

  My Sheila,

  I suppose this is an unlucky dip we shall all have to come to, plunge our hands in the sawdust and see what we come up with. I have always dreaded that my ‘prize’ might be cancer, because I am such a procrastinating creature and shall need time to make adjustments; but the older I get the more I realise there are much worse things buried down there - the motor diseases and Alzheimer’s. They can do so much to control cancer, can’t they? And then, again, it is surprising how much of one’s body one can do without. Kathleen assures me, ‘You can manage perfectly well without a stomach.’