I had barely closed the door to my flat when the phone rang. It was Victoria, calling about our trip to Sissinghurst. We were on for the following Wednesday, she said. And Angela was joining us. They would pick me up at ten, in front of my building.
At precisely ten o’clock on the following Wednesday I spotted a large maroon sedan making its way through the Sloane Avenue traffic. Where Sloane and Cadogan intersected a waving arm appeared through the car’s back window. It was followed by Victoria’s face. The car pulled up in front of me; a door opened and Victoria said, “Been waiting long?” She laughed and moved over, making room for me in the back seat.
“Good morning,” Sarah said, turning around. “Quite the fresh day, isn’t it?” I noticed she and Victoria wore almost identical outfits: dark tailored slacks and sweater sets, one yellow, the other pink. “This is Angela Martinelli,” she said, introducing me to the woman at the wheel of the car.
Angela turned and held out her hand. “So you’re the American I’ve been hearing about. How nice to meet you.” Something about the way she said this, the warmth and wry tone of her voice, made me like Angela. Angela was not wearing slacks and a sweater set. Angela, looking as sleek as a greyhound with her white hair pulled back and tied with a black ribbon, wore what looked like khaki jodhpurs and a crisp white cotton shirt.
“Well then, ladies, we’re off,” she said. Then, affecting a Bette Davis voice, she added, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Bette Davis! From All About Eve, one of my favorite movies! Now this is a woman after my own heart, I thought, as the big boxy car moved soundlessly out from the curb and into the stream of traffic.
Although the drive to Sissinghurst took about two hours, it seemed much shorter. But then time always telescopes when you put four women together who are eager to share what’s on their minds.
On the way Sarah talked about the creation of the Sissinghurst gardens. “They were really designed to function as outdoor rooms, walled in by hedges and enclosures. And the White Garden was where the family dined.” But it was the garden’s creators—Sir Harold Nicolson, a diplomat, and his wife, writer Vita Sackville-West—that interested me most.
“It was a most unconventional but remarkable marriage,” Sarah continued, explaining that Vita had engaged in passionate affairs with a number of women. But despite this, the marriage held. “Restoring Sissinghurst, I think, played a large role in keeping Vita and Nicolson together. You might say the gardens became the object of Vita’s passion.”
“Well, not completely,” Victoria broke in. “Wasn’t there something in that biography of Virginia Woolf about an affair with Vita before the war? One that ended when Vita grew tired of Virginia?”
“Well, I guess gardens can only go so far in the passion department,” Angela said.
“And how would you know?” Sarah asked wryly. “It’s not as though you’ve ever gardened.”
“No. But we’ve all got our Sissinghursts, haven’t we? Our secret gardens that replace some lost passion in our lives. My Sissinghurst, I suspect, is salmon fishing.”
I was struck by Angela’s honesty. And by her willingness to share such an intimate observation. It seemed very brave. What was my Sissinghurst? I wondered. The answer was not difficult: my writing. The search for an elegant way to explain something in words—what I thought of as the physics of writing—still thrilled me.
At the gardens Sarah acted as our guide, leading us through the breathtaking estate that had been nothing more than a series of deteriorating sixteenth-century buildings when Vita and Harold purchased it in 1930. Now there were lawns, orchards, and a lake. And, of course, the famous gardens. The Rose Garden. The Sunken Garden. The Cottage Garden. And the one everyone came to see: the White Garden, known for its flowers and fragrances.
“Quite likely it’s the most copied garden in the world,” Sarah said, leading us through a landscape of drifting, fragrant whiteness. White snapdragons. White roses. White peonies. White irises. White geraniums. White lilies. White poppies. It was like walking through a field of snow flurries.
We strolled through the garden more or less in silence, four women, each with her own thoughts. But later, as Angela and I followed the other two women back to the car, she asked me what I thought of Sissinghurst.
“I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live here and walk through the White Garden in moonlight.”
“Quite lovely, I suppose, in a ghostly sort of way,” Angela replied. “I know you’ll think me mad, but standing in the garden I was thinking about my last fishing trip.”
“And what did you think?” I asked.
“Oh, that standing in a stream always gives me a feeling of connection.”
“Connection to what?”
“To myself, I suppose. To the person inside who’s been there for as long as I can remember.”
I was intrigued and wanted to know more about the person inside Angela. But by this time we had reached the car, where Victoria and Sarah stood waiting.
It was about seven o’clock when the maroon Bentley glided to a stop in front of my apartment building. “It was a marvelous day, wasn’t it?” Victoria said. “But I’m dead tired.”
We were all dead tired. And comfortable enough with each other to admit it, thereby eliminating any halfhearted suggestion about going on to dinner. But tomorrow was another day, and Victoria, the Scarlett O’Hara of the group, always planning something, came up with an idea.
“I’ve heard of an absolutely fantastic production of Pride and Prejudice going on in London this month.” A theater company in town, she told us, was presenting an adaptation of Jane Austen’s book in various historic houses around London. “It will be like watching the Bennets in their own drawing room,” Victoria said.
The idea appealed to all of us immediately. It was just a matter of finding out when and where the performances were scheduled, a task Victoria eagerly accepted.
Two days later, she called to ask if the following Thursday suited me. It did. “We’re going to have a light supper over on Walton Street before the play,” Victoria said, referring to a charming street tucked away behind the Brompton Road just near my flat.
“That sounds lovely,” I told her, parroting the phrase that by now was etched into my brain.
The performance of Pride and Prejudice took place at an historic house near Greenwich Park in the southeast section of London. Victoria had been right; listening to the drawing-room conversations between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in such a setting engaged the imagination in ways not possible in a regular theater. The production was delightful and I was thoroughly enjoying myself when, near the end of the play, a sharp, throbbing headache appeared. Ten minutes later, a queasy feeling began to come and go.
The cause of my distress puzzled me. I’d felt fine at dinner and had not eaten or drunk anything likely to account for my symptoms. I tried to concentrate on the play, telling myself the feelings would pass. But they didn’t. Later, when it was suggested we have a drink, I said nothing to the others about feeling ill, saying instead I was way behind in my letter-writing and would pass on the drink.
It was a wise decision. By the time I unlocked the door to my flat, the headache was so bad I could barely see. I turned on one small light in the foyer—any light brighter than that made me feel dizzy—and managed, just, to undress myself, take some aspirin, and crawl into bed. Automatically, I turned on the radio on the nightstand. It had become a habit to fall asleep listening to the “chat” shows that ran throughout the night on London radio. And, I figured, if ever I needed someone to help get me through the night, this was it.
I slept fitfully, waking every hour or so to the sound of disconnected bits of conversation coming from the radio. Pruning of flowering shrubs is best done after the blooming season.… Your puppy should be spayed at eight months.… Having sexual relations twice a week is not unusual for couples in their seventies.… In between, I dreamed. Jumbled-up,
nonsense dreams that patched together bits and pieces of my life, past and present, into surreal vignettes.
When I heard a phone ringing I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or if I was awake. Slowly, though, I realized it wasn’t part of a dream; someone really was on the other end of the line, trying to reach me. But did I have the strength to answer it? With great effort I rolled over in the direction of the night table and picked up the receiver.
It was Angela. She was calling to say, in a voice shot through with wry amusement, that I should be on my guard, that Sarah and Victoria had discussed dueling schemes after dropping me off the night before. “Sarah wants to go to Hidcote Gardens and Victoria’s keen for Bath. What do you think?”
I tried to sound as normal as possible, telling Angela I was a little under the weather and would have to take a rain check. But my voice, so weak that it was almost unintelligible, did not fool Angela.
“You sound awful. I’m coming over,” she said, brushing aside my halfhearted protests.
The truth is, I was relieved to know she was on her way. And very glad that it was Angela who was coming.
“You look ghastly,” Angela said when she arrived, skipping any polite pretense about my appearance. Ordinarily, I considered such things important—keeping up appearances, no matter how difficult, affecting an attitude of self-sufficiency, not letting on when I was feeling ill, etc., etc., etc. But when the body fails as mine had, regression seizes the opportunity it’s been waiting for: to push aside the adult and let the child—in my case the sick child—take over. I yielded to Angela’s ministrations.
To my surprise, she knew her way around a sickroom. She took my temperature—“Up, but not too bad,” she said, dispensing a dose of aspirin—then moved me to the other twin bed while she changed the sheets. Then she handed me fresh night clothes and a cool washcloth, crushed some ice, pouring it over the Coke syrup she’d brought with her, darkened the room and, finally, checked the medicine cabinet and pantry to see what was there.
“I’m calling Victoria to bring over some things from the chemist and the grocer. You should try to get some sleep,” Angela said. She left the bedroom, leaving the door behind her slightly ajar. Exhausted by the morning’s activities I quickly dozed off.
I awoke to the low, musical sound of women’s voices in the living room. As I listened through the half-open door to the soft, blurred conversation, its slow cadences as reassuring to me as a cool hand on my brow, I thought of Mother and Grandmother, talking at night on the porch just beneath my window. I looked at the clock; a little after one in the afternoon. I checked myself out by trying to sit up in bed. But even raising my head required more energy than I had. It also produced a wave of dizziness that sent me scurrying back to my pillow.
“Ah, I see you’re awake,” a cheery voice said from the door. It was Victoria. Angela stood behind her. “How do you feel?”
“Like a cat on a hot tin roof,” I said, without the slightest clue as to what in the world prompted such a totally inept description of my physical state.
“Can you drink some tea?” Angela asked. “Maybe eat a dry biscuit or two?” I said I’d try.
A tea tray was brought in and the two women sat on the bed opposite mine, pouring tea and offering sympathy.
They stayed most of the afternoon, seeing to it that I drank fluids, took aspirin, and rested.
“Sarah will pop in tonight with some soup,” Victoria said as they were leaving. “And we’ll see you tomorrow.”
Over the next few days, a three-shift schedule went into action. Someone on duty in the morning, usually Victoria; then Sarah in the afternoon; and in the evening, Angela. Each woman stayed for an hour or two, and each had her own approach to the task at hand.
Victoria arrived bearing two or three newspapers, from which she would read aloud after fixing me tea and toast. Sarah brought flowers and wholesome things to eat such as chicken-and-rice soup and delicate puddings. She also brought flowers and watched television with me. We particularly enjoyed a show called The House of Eliott, a story of two sisters who become fashionable London dressmakers in the 1920s.
But it was Angela’s evening visits that I looked forward to most. What Angela brought was: herself.
Like Scheherazade, she told me stories; tales about her life as an only child and as a slightly reckless young woman who longed to be an actress. She told me of her first marriage to a barrister, a happy union that produced a son; and of her second one to an aging actor she’d met while living for a year in Italy. She talked of her son, of their closeness, even though he lived in an isolated part of Wales. And she talked of what she wanted in the years ahead: “The life I have now, plus my health,” she said. “And maybe one grand surprise every year or so.”
On one such evening Angela brought me a book titled The Journey’s Echo. “It’s a selection of travel writings by Freya Stark,” Angela said, explaining that Stark, who’d died just three months earlier at the age of 100, had spent most of her life exploring Arabia and the Middle East. “She was an extraordinary woman who traveled alone at a time when women simply didn’t do such things. I thought you might enjoy it.”
I was touched by Angela’s thoughtfulness. And flattered, too. I had come to admire her very much.
Later that evening, while thinking about how I had let myself depend on the kindness of these three women, I suddenly bumped into a new thought: the realization that something in me had loosened, the way a knot loosens, and I had allowed myself to lean on someone else. Over the years, without noticing it, I’d subscribed to the notion of independence as a condition that dictated complete self-sufficiency. That I should let go—even temporarily—of such a ridiculous idea came as something of a surprise.
That night I had a dream: Mother and I are sitting on the back porch in the sun. I am a little girl and she is washing my hair in a white enamel basin. Later she dries it with a towel and begins to braid it. I love the feel of her hands in my hair and I lean back against her body, overcome with happiness and contentment.
Three days after the onset of my illness I awoke at five in the morning. Immediately, I knew something was different. For the first time in several days, I felt hungry. I’m well, I thought. Whatever I had is gone and I’m well. I sat up and looked through the window. Outside, the stars were growing pale. I pulled on a robe and stepped onto the balcony.
Daylight was just starting to color the sky. London was not yet awake. But the birds were. From somewhere above me a dozen speckled birds appeared, flying through the sleeping sky in tight formation, passing near enough that I could hear the flap, flap, flap of their wings rowing the cool morning air. As they moved away, they called to one another, their shrieking cries trailing behind them. Seagulls? I wondered, remembering I’d read somewhere that on windy days, the gulls can be blown inland to London. Were they heading for the ocean?
Wide awake now and caught up in the euphoria of feeling well again, I imagined myself an adventurer, flying solo like Amelia Earhart through the night skies, through the stars, into daylight. I thought suddenly of the book Angela gave me. It seemed the perfect time to start it.
I carried a cup of tea and a scone with me out onto the balcony and settled into a chair. Opening the book, I turned to the first page and read a passage written from Baghdad by Freya Stark in 1929, when she was thirty-six years old. It began:
To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it.
Immediately I felt the little thrill I always get upon opening a book and finding inside the voice of a kindred spirit. It happens sometimes in life, too, that immediate sense of kinship. I felt it when I met Victoria. And Sarah. And Angela. Particularly Angela.
Of course, I knew that the kinship of stran
gers, particularly those met while traveling, is often a temporary kinship. But who’s to say length is the yardstick by which to measure such encounters?
I decided I would take Freya and my three new friends with me when I moved on. I could see it now, Freya leading the four of us through the gardens of Baghdad. Or Freya crossing the desert on camelback, followed by four women, in matching sweater sets, riding behind in a boxy maroon car. But she wouldn’t be scornful of us, not if she’s the Freya I think she is. She would understand some of us are more comfortable walking in the foothills of adventure than climbing to the summit.
And Freya would understand that even though I wasn’t scaling mountains or crossing deserts in this, my Year of Living Dangerously, I was in my own way wading into the stream of the unknown, accepting whatever the gods had to offer.
7
LOVE LETTERS
Dear Alice,
I wonder if there will ever be another event that brings people together as the Second World War did. Not in my lifetime, I suspect. The truth is, the world has changed so much I’m not sure any event could produce the “home front” mentality that existed then. We Americans had it and so did other Allied countries. But none so much, I suspect, as Great Britain. You stillcannot walk here in London without sensing the presence of Britain’s “finest hour.”
Without Reservations Page 10