We had dinner, or supper if you prefer it, with the Fagans on Sunday. Mother remarked later, 'Wasn't Audrey painful?' and I must admit, I quite agreed with her. Poor Audrey, she has been an invalid for so long, and the household revolved around her health, that she is more than a little bit of a – oh dear, I've forgotten the word. It isn't kleptomaniac, nor is it – perhaps it is hypochondriac? – anyway, she is so centred on her health and appearance that nothing else interests her. At intervals of about five minutes she would butt in on any casual conversation going on to ask if we were quite sure we thought she looked better, or hadn't we admired the way she had cut up the radishes, or didn't we think she'd done the flowers well, or were we sure we thought her colour was better, and how worried she was getting because she had regained all the weight she had lost through the operation period, and was now wondering whether she was going to get fat. As she currently weighs 103lbs and is my height, her legs and arms look like well dieted matchsticks at the moment, and I told Mac privately to stop her being so silly as to even think of dieting until she has put on another twenty pounds or so. Oh, I get more and more worried about the whole thing, for from my own observations and knowledge of my brother, I think he is getting very restive and bored but hasn't the courage to say so or make a break for it.
It's horrid of me to be so critical of Audrey, I know, and when I look inwardly I see so many facets of my own character that I just loathe – my boastfulness, for instance; and my inability to keep quiet about something that may hurt somebody else's feelings; my habit of riding over other people's wishes with the blissful belief that I am doing it for their good – that I do realise I am in no position to be critical of Audrey or anybody else. And I suppose there is always the doubt whether my knowledge of my own character is as accurate as I feel; whether my deep belief that I do almost everything just a little better than average but not well enough to be good at it, is a true belief or not; perhaps I am just being falsely modest? Oh, I don't know, and if you have got this far through this paragraph I don't suppose you can sort it out for me, either! What I feel is this, I have a reasonably good idea, deep down, of my abilities as such and of my faults. Has Audrey any idea of hers? Does she ask for admiration all the time because she really feels insecure and wants reassuring?
. . . I do hope your cold is quite gone by now, or if not gone, then suitably reduced from king to pin size. Summer colds are the very devil, aren't they – I had one about four weeks ago and was delighted that it lasted only three days. Only, it didn't. It left a cough behind it which I have yet; so please take my advice, and if I am too late to exhort you not to have a cold at all, don't have a Bournemouth-type cold.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
July 18th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Well, well; you leave me breathless, even after knowing you so well all these years. I must try your excuse on my dentist next time I go there, and say airily that I didn't come when the six months was up because, after all, I might cross the Styx any moment and it hardly seemed worth the bother and I only turned up in the end because the pain was just too awful to bear any longer . . . You have been coming that old gag about 'not being here next year', I may remind you, Sir, since the early summer of 1949, and although I admit that on the basis of pure logic, you are bound to be right in the end, I am hoping that I shall be too old to enjoy the joke when you send me a spirit message saying 'See, I was right, after all'. Anyway, haven't you a set of store teeth lying around the house somewhere you can make use of ? I ask such a horrid question because I was recently reading a book about Elizabethan England, and it was quite the thing in those days to keep a set or two in the great houses, so that they could be loaned to any guests visiting you who would otherwise have found it hard to tear the joint apart with their gums. Awful thoughts that conjures up, doesn't it?
. . . Well, my brother and his fiancée and her mum are all back from Devonshire, with Mac's back a mass of bright pink peeling blisters from the sun. He had a touch of sunstroke, and could neither eat nor sleep from Monday night until Friday morning. When a friend of ours heard this, she was furious and said you would have thought with two women there, they would have looked after him a bit better. Poor Dorothy, she has been so fond of my brother for so many years, without the slightest hope, for she is plain, white-haired, and as prim as could be. I hadn't the heart to tell her the case is slightly reversed when Mac is at Audrey's home – there, he has to look after the women-folk. Chez-moi, we look after him. I will admit I haven't mentioned to anybody (not even Mac) that Audrey told me rather smugly that as there was no lift in the hotel Mac used to carry her upstairs whenever she wished to go up . . . . . . Do you think MacPherson imagines himself to be a twentieth-century Rbt Browning? After all, Audrey had a big operation to put her heart right – who needs to carry her upstairs???? Mother, too, had had a dicky heart for the last ten or twelve years, but does Mac go down the stairs to fetch the morning paper when it comes bouncing through the letter box, to save Mother's heart? Does he heck! And don't say it's Lurve or I shall puke, Sir . . .
The Fagans told me that when Mac had more or less recovered from his sunstroke – by the Friday, that is – he felt it was necessary to liven things up a bit in the hotel, and to that end he astonished the staff who had worked there for years and never once seen them, by persuading somebody to switch on the lights on the terrace, and organising a flood-lit tennis match (four torches, held at each corner by giggling guests) to amuse those who were not dancing . . . . . . He also behaved exactly as if he was at home – went off and played golf and came back at 2.15 p.m. for lunch, and just calmly talked the head waiter into serving him! That, I may tell you spoiled Yankee, is practically unheard of in England, where the hotel guests do as the staff say, or else . . . . . . Altogether, when he felt well enough, Mac behaved just like his father, who always organised hotels whenever he had to stay in one of the hated places, and in spite of it all, always managed to be extremely popular with the staff as well as with the guests, so that the whole hotel would be en fête during his stay.
We have a woodpecker just arrived in our garden. Not last year's Green Woodpecker, but an ordinary one with a red topknot. He is a bit shy at the moment, but we'll tame him, you see. I couldn't agree more with you over the way this spraying of crops is ruining bird and animal and insect life, and, believe fully that eventually it will ruin the crops as well. Ah me, nothing like the good old days, is there Mr B?
And on that nostalgic note I will leave you until next Saturday, and hope that you will not repeat your cold, nor your recent fit of the dumps. Isn't there a yachting week coming along soon to take your mind off miserable thoughts?
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
July 24th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Do you remember, some weeks ago, I lost the first page of one of my letters to you? And thought, finally, I must have packed it in error with that drawing of the monks?
Well, all this week I have been doing your weekly letter in bits and pieces, and last evening – Thursday – it was almost finished. For some reason I cannot account for, I folded it ready for putting in an envelope, and put it back into my desk drawer, so that it did not lie openly to the gaze of anybody who happened to pull the drawer out. As I said, it was folded in three, with only the plain back of the outer sheet visible. And this morning, Friday, it has gone.
Gone completely and absolutely. I have turned my office inside out and upside down, and it is nowhere. I looked in my boss's wastepaper basket, and it is not there. In mine, neither, nor in the large rubbish bin we keep in the hall and into which we empty our baskets.
Tomorrow I shall have to ask my boss if he went to that drawer. I do not for a minute think that, if he had done so, he would go so far as to open a letter and, seeing my address and 'Dear Mr Bigelow' at the top, read it. I know he would not. My only hope
is that, having opened it and seen it was a letter of mine, he has put it away somewhere and is going to blow me up for leaving personal correspondence about. The only thing other than that is that one of the staff is going through my things when I am not here, and that is a horrible suspicion, and upsets me so thoroughly that, sorry though I am, you will have to go without your usual letter this week, as I just cannot concentrate on rewriting the whole thing. Even if this is right – and somebody is reading my letters – why take it away? True, in it I have, as usual, mentioned things that happened at work and have even told you of an incident in which my boss was concerned, but why take the whole thing away and, by so doing, warn me of what is going on? Oh, I feel sick and shivery at the whole horrid business.
I am sorry, I will write you twice next week if I can. But I just can't right now.
Yours sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
August 4th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Oh dear – I had hoped to have good news for you today, but alas, Friday got worse and worse as the day progressed.
When I found your letter had disappeared completely you may imagine I fairly panicked at the thought of unauthorised persons reading what is always a very private letter – I don't care a hoot who reads it your end for nobody in Bellport knows anybody in Bournemouth, so no harm is likely to come of their knowledge of little bits and pieces out of my life. But for the staff to read what I say about them, and about my boss and his family! That made me feel so sick I didn't eat for 24 hours, and even now, four days later, can get food down only with difficulty. For, in that particular letter, although there was nothing I have not already said to him in person, there were things about my boss and, especially, about his daughter-in-law, that I would give my eyeteeth not to have read by any other interested parties.
But the letter, although that is by far the worst, is only one of many things. You must know that Thursday morning it looked as if it might rain, so I picked my umbrella out of the stand as I left home for the office, and as it was unfurled, I rolled it up as I walked to the garage. When I got to work, I hung it on a hook on my office door, and left it there overnight as it was fine when I finished work, and I remember thinking it might be as well to leave it in town and use it at midday on Friday, when I go home for lunch. So there it was, Thursday night, in my office. Friday evening, when I was morosely getting ready to go home about 9.30, I went to pick the umbrella off the hook, and thought, 'That's funny – I didn't remember seeing it had rotted, when I rolled it up yesterday.' And I unfurled it, and opened it, and oh Mr Bigelow, somebody must hate me to the point of mania, for the whole thing had been ripped to bits with a nail or a screwdriver, or something pointed, which had been pulled hard down each of the folds, towards the ferrule. When I showed it to my boss on Saturday morning, he – he hadn't altogether believed me before – in turn opened it, and dropped it as if it were hot, saying, 'This is the work of a madman!' as he did so. Even at second hand, you see, he felt some of the cold horror I got at this anonymous hatred.
Now that I look back, that first disappearance of a letter does not seem to be my carelessness in packing it up with your tie, or the monk drawing, as I decided at the time I had. Nor does it seem possible any longer to kid myself that the piercing of the gramophone diaphragm in a dozen places was done naturally, by the pitch of the noise when I played a record. I know when I found it, the engineer said it could not have been done naturally but must have been deliberate, but so naive was I, I refused to believe anybody would do such a thing. In my own mind I believe I know who it is: it may be that in my distress I am looking only at those straws which are blowing in the same direction, but I still feel I am right. Apart from never leaving anything personal about in future, I am in terror of what this warped mind may think to do with the two letters he has – blackmail of me is impossible and in any case I should go at once to the police; but he could send the last one to my boss's daughter-in-law if he wanted to be really cruel, for it would make all friendly relationships between them (very strained at the moment) quite impossible. When I can, I am trying to make a systematic search of the building, but there are thousands of places where a man could hide something, even if he didn't take it home, or keep it in his pocket. I have told my boss, and although I didn't tell him what was in my letter, gave him a hint that it concerned him personally; he was very upset but did not upbraid me.
Of course, he then said he thought somebody had been going through his office a long time ago, that was why he had a special lock on the door to which only he and I have keys – in my office, nothing locks, not even my desk.
Never mind: I'll send you a more cheerful letter on Friday, probably padlocked. But aren't people foul?
Yours distressed,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
September 5th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Don't tell me the postal authorities have taken to using pigeons instead of aeroplanes for their transatlantic mail? You should have received my last letter before Friday. We must claim a refund . . .
On Wednesday afternoon, while the audience was coming in for the water show matinée performance, as I was working with my office door open, I heard the hall man say, 'Does anybody own this?' When I went out, he had been referring to a tiny baby, not more than eighteen or nineteen months, who was rushing about the hall and up and down the entrance steps. The baby was wearing a crew-cut and a pair of stamp-size pants. After looking at him sideways, I said dubiously that I thought I had seen him before, only on the previous occasion he had been on the seafront and his tummy was fatter, too . . .
Anyway, eventually the infant wandered off and tried to push Mr Markson's enormous red Jaguar off the road, and as he – the infant – was then heading straight for the traffic on the main road I dashed out and stopped him, and asked where his mother was. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the beach and France, so holding one hand in mine, we set off to look for her. We had a long and vivid conversation, only one half of which meant anything at all to me, but he apparently enjoyed it for he kept bubbling over with laughter . . . When we reached a stall selling sweets, under the pier, I looked in and saw a young ticketcollector (deckchair tickets) and said, 'Please, do you know where this one belongs?' The man raised his hands in mock horror, and saying resignedly, 'What, again! Every day, that one. Every day. Come on, Buster, back to the Office.' So he hoisted the small baby onto his shoulders, and set off to the Beach Office where lost property of all sorts is kept, merely turning his head over his shoulder and saying to me, 'Really should have a strong chain on, this one.' To be such a well-known character by the time you aren't two, something to be quite proud of. And such a happy baby, too. I only hope its mother was equally happy; obviously she wasn't the worrying kind of parent.
My brother took his 16 assorted children from one of the Homes to the zoo at Bristol for the day on Monday. I asked him when he got home if he had managed to lose any of them, and he giggled and said no, but almost. Apparently when the coach-driver had arrived to collect them, Mac told him they would be 20 minutes late as there was such a long queue for rides on the elephant some of his kids wouldn't get one at all if they didn't have this extra time. Finally he said, he got the lot together, and was busy counting them for the second time when they were all safely inside the coach, when, presto, there were only 15. 'It didn't matter much,' said Mac, 'as I just went back to the elephant, and there was little Eric waiting for another ride.'
Incidentally, said brother is off on holiday again at the end of the month – to Scotland this time. He's done very well this year. A week at home while the national Hard Court Tennis Championships were being played at his club ground. Fine weather. A week at Salcombe. Very fine weather. A week for the Hampshire Tennis Championships at the club. Fine weather again, and now ten days for Scotland. He'll get home the day I start off on my holiday, so I daresay the odds are the weather will break the same day o
r am I being unduly pessimistic? Never mind, even if it rains in France I intend to enjoy myself, and can always buy a raincoat for the occasion anyway. Having taken the plunge, I am quite looking forward to it, and on consultation with my post office savings book, don't think I shall arrive home broke after all, which is a pleasant surprise . . .
Ah well. That's all for now . . . Don't become a recluse, now – you'll hurt half Bellport, if you do, for I am sure your many friends love to see you in their homes, if only to add a comfortable atmosphere, sitting sipping your punch by their fireside.
See you next Saturday,
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
September 26th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Well, yesterday has been and went, as it were, and I hope that way out at Bellport it went well, with everybody highly satisfied, especially the leading actor of the day . . .
I sat up late the other evening to watch our wonderful Dame Margot Fonteyn dance on television. She, with Michael Soames, did a pas de deux from Ondine, which was a revelation. It was incredible how a mature woman in her early forties could, merely by dance movements and mime, portray the coy, skipping soul of a young girl. She was just wonderful. To follow her in the programme some brilliant mind got Richard Hearne to do his famous 'Lancers' dance, as a sort of contrast! I had not seen him do this before, so nearly rocked off the settee as he progressed. First of all, he sits at the side of the ballroom watching a set of dancers doing the Lancers. When they finish, he decides he'll take part, but when he reaches the dance floor everybody has vanished. So he dances a set by himself, peopling the floor merely by means of his eyes, watching the other pairs doing their steps as it is his turn, with his partner, to stand still for a few moments. The music gets quicker and quicker, with the inevitable consequence at last. I understand it is almost a classic of the theatre, this dance of his, and well it might be.
Dear Mr Bigelow Page 33