Diary of a Wartime Affair

by Doreen Bates

  SUNDAY 23 MAY

  Met E at Waterloo yesterday and during coffee told him the result of my interview with Dr Malleson. He made no comment. After he went home I had some lunch and then to the National Gallery for half an hour, then to the Queen’s Hall before 3.15 for the concert with Solomon. It was good. After the concert to Piccadilly Monseigneur News Theatre and saw the coloured and uncoloured versions of the coronation film. The Abbey pictures were interesting. It all looked a stupendous make-believe. I felt sorry for the King – at the end he looked an over-dressed idol – quite inhuman. The odd incidents were amusing – the Archbishop twisting the crown around to find the front, the Duke of Kent nearly over-balancing as he knelt to do homage, the King wondering where to wipe the ink off his finger after signing the oath. He looked very sad all through.

  SUNDAY 30 MAY

  We have had a week of summer only broken by a thunderstorm on Wed evening.

  In spite of the heat I have had a full week. We have said nothing about our 3 months’ separation all the week but it has of course been in my mind. I expected to feel very dismal, rather as I felt just before E went to Finsbury. Oddly enough I have felt quite cheerful, possibly because now my mind is made up. It has been a kind of Indian summer. I have seen him a lot and we have done a variety of things – a kind of epitome of the last 3 years. On Monday I met him at 6.10 as usual and it was obvious that he was feeling miserable. We went to Flemings for dinner. After a while he talked and although he was more upset than I have ever seen him, I think, I couldn’t help feeling a little happy. For the first time it was clear that he looked on the baby as I do in at least 2 aspects. From the public standpoint we ought not to waste my good machine; if he can’t do it he would always feel he had failed, had been unable to face a challenge. This is what I have wanted him to feel. Now I think if I give him time and leave him to fight his battle in peace he will eventually reach my position. Still, although one part of me rejoiced I pitied him – he had suffered appallingly. He said, ‘I feel like Macbeth, as if I had murdered sleep,’ and he looked like it. He said, ‘I feel quite inhibited from any sexual approach to you.’ I said that if that was how he felt and continued to feel there was no point in nerving himself to tell K and in upsetting her unnecessarily – and more on this subject. Joad gave a good lecture on Hegel. Afterwards E felt better, looked better, and said he felt better. We walked over Hungerford Bridge and the moon was rising, a pale yellow-silver in the south. We stopped to watch it behind a puffy light bank of cloud which was faintly luminous with its light and he said, ‘The cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces.’ Then the moon’s disc emerged and the spell was broken. As I was going he said, ‘I like you tremendously.’

  WEDNESDAY 2 JUNE

  Well, Goodbye for 3 months. I had to say it quickly before I cried completely. I suppose I’ll feel better in time. I wonder, does he feel the same? And only an hour and a half of the 3 months is gone. So far just a hideous attempt not to drown in what he would call a ‘complete revulsion’. I did quite well, though, till I’d finished my cigarette.

  THURSDAY 3 JUNE

  One out of 96 days till I see you again. This obsession in my mind is like a child’s toy railway, the one thought running round and round till I can see nothing, hear nothing without thinking of you. Figaro (Act 3) from Glyndebourne this evening. It was foolish to listen but it is so lovely and I thought perhaps you would be listening too. The scene before the battle in Julius Caesar runs in my head. Shakespeare has such rhythm and can fit any situation.

  ‘For ever and for ever farewell Brutus

  If we do meet again we’ll smile indeed

  If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.’

  FRIDAY 4 JUNE

  Better today definitely, for 2 reasons – (1) I have been busy – a lot of post, running round for DJ, 2 hours’ lunchtime with Reen, IRSSA committee, (2) I am beginning to take in emotionally the fact that if I am going to have a baby this 3 months is probably the last period of comparative leisure I shall have for years. Therefore (a) it is a pity to waste it in groans and tears anyway, (b) it is a final opportunity to write something.

  Tomorrow will be bad and Monday will be worse – 2 out of 96, 1/48. It isn’t so bad for him going away for a fortnight next week. He will have got used to it anyway before he notices it.

  FRIDAY 2 JULY

  I got Ella Jude for her birthday as she said she had never read it all. It was foolish as it made me think of E, as always. In any case I have wanted a baby very badly today. If I’d had time this morning I would have tried to make a verse on the contrast between making guns and tanks and aeroplanes and making a baby.

  MONDAY 5 JULY

  An unsatisfactory day – a hurried, hectic morning and then a hasty small lunch and then to meet Rosa at Charing Cross. She gave me as a holiday present a green cotton Hungarian frock with silver buttons, tight bodice and full skirt. In spite of all this I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm. I know now that the interest I took in clothes was almost entirely for E’s sake. I do want him. I feel lonely and dull and unenterprising and bored and boring without him. It is humiliating to feel it and I suppose it is just temporary but there it is. I don’t care a hoot for anything. It isn’t exactly active pain or unhappiness but emptiness.

  TUESDAY 13 JULY

  After close and heavy clouds the sky cleared to a lovely golden evening – cloudless and lofty with a pale new moon in the west. I finished The Porch* yesterday evening and sent it off to E with a note at lunchtime.

  Reen has got a move to Maidenhead. She rang up yesterday and it gave me quite a shock. I was sorry. She has grown on me over the last 12 months. Still, she is anxious to keep in touch with London beginning with a lunch tomorrow.

  I feel surprisingly cheerful this evening – why? Perhaps because I worked hard till 5.40 without noticing the time. Perhaps because I have imagined E reading The Porch with interest, and through me! 5/12 of the time yesterday. ‘40 days and 40 nights’! 6 weeks tomorrow since I saw him, 7 weeks next Monday till I shall. So it passes.

  WEDNESDAY 14 JULY

  Still cheerful, perhaps because I have looked nice. No spots, nails not chippy, hair manageable without being greasy. DJ showed just a suspicion of personal interest – oh, nothing to notice – just a little responsive to persistent nagging, even a suspicion on his own, e.g. I said (on some small point), ‘I agree, I daresay you’re right.’ He feigned surprise – ‘No, that’s not like you! What’s the matter?’

  How I want E – not dismally at all – but just to bicker and laugh at and irritate and then (in spite of the heat) to love a little and then to have a baby. Ooh! I could just put one finger on K and squash her like a mosquito, quite calmly and almost disinterestedly, as a blot on the landscape! How fortunate that I can’t do anything!

  WEDNESDAY 21 JULY

  I have felt increasingly if obscurely dismal today. Why? (It is always a healthy exercise to find concrete reasons – it reveals the rickety basis for most emotional states) (1) Perhaps because E has not sent back The Porch yet. (2) Reaction from a week’s liveliness culminating in yesterday when, to celebrate the arrival of halfway through the 3 months, I took a day’s leave and went to Seaford with Rosa and Margot.

  We climbed on to Seaford Head and lunched in the hollow where Ella and I lunched last month. Rosa was as enthusiastic as a child. We went down to the shore and paddled. The tide was out and I have never seen the Cuckmere such a tiny trickle – you could almost cross it in shoes! There were yellow sea-poppies growing on the shingle. We walked along the embankment finding teazles and purple sea lavender by the path. It was a lovely day and a harmonious expedition. I looked at Rosa and Margot and thought: is it evil in me to be preparing for them such disturbance? Why don’t I leave them in peace? Accepting (with oddnesses) the ordinary conventions. Giving them more than they expect or ask or will accept without hesitation but being what they think is right, and the best for me. I don’t know. It is evil if suffering is unconditio
nally evil. I only know it would seem as much a sin for me to refuse to have a child, if E is willing, as it seemed wrong to Sue to go on living with Jude. Perhaps it appears a mistake and silly to others as Sue’s attitude seems to me. It is appalling to be in suspense, to have a choice taken from me after I had chosen.

  The Cuckmere river

  FRIDAY 23 JULY

  This is going to be one long gloom. E sent back The Porch this morning and with it a letter – quite long – consisting of (1) comment on the book, (2) description of his cruise, (3) a few notes of ‘family’ movements including that he is going to Malvern the 3rd week in August and (4) ‘I am afraid I cannot give you much consolation.’ The cold-blooded ‘thoughtfulness’ of (4) has blackened the whole universe for me today. This is not an exaggeration. Everything I did or tried to do – read or tried to read – was spoilt. I suffered the whole spectrum, as it were, of evil feeling which I have come to know so well. Hatred of the woman who prevents me – I didn’t know it was possible to hate anyone with the gusts of hate I feel against her; bitterness with E which almost curdles my love. He has the final say. But how convenient to stop loving me just at the moment when I asked him for the only material thing I have ever asked him for. Worst of all, the moral paralysis which filters into my mind, almost like a voice of the devil himself. ‘You were wrong – you should be more calculating – make sure of what you want and go all out for it – ask for what you want from life, and take it; pay as little and get as much as you can; it is only a fool who gives without considering the cost – it leads to emotional bankruptcy as surely as complete charity leads to material bankruptcy. She knew what she wanted and took it. He gave it to her – all, more than she asked. And the result? She has a permanent hold on his affection. Harden your heart, cut your losses, leave him his peace and an occasional sentimental memory, have your hair waved and go out for all you can get.’

  Finally, better, but heart-breaking and I could cry. Regret, remorse. It is my own fault. I let the opportunity slip by because I was afraid. If I had had a boy at Shrewsbury* he would be two now. If I had taken my last chance in Feb he would be alive inside me now, I could feel him move instead of the hard emptiness beneath my heart. This is only my fault and it is the bitterest thought, tho’ it is not evil. At least – there is the richness of experience. Nothing – no pain, no misery, no frustration can take that away. I must reflect on that and resolve not to waste the smallest opportunity again.

  WEDNESDAY 28 JULY

  I am having an orgy of reading. All this week 2–300 pages a day – too much: Keyserling’s Art of Life, Gunther’s Inside Europe and Mathematics for the Million. I went to the library today and got Trevelyan’s Grey of Fallodon and Heard’s Third Morality. It is a kind of gluttony – almost like drink. I read so as not to think. Still, I do think. Today I wonder whether perhaps he will have the courage. My hope is like the bindweed in the lupin bed; I pull it all up – roots and leaves – there is not an atom left apparently one day – 2 days later it is sprouting a whole new shoot complete with tiny leaves and if I don’t destroy it again quickly it leaps up and strangles everything else. The advantage is that while I hope I am happier. The disadvantage is that the more I hope the more cruel is the disappointment. At bottom I suppose it is a matter of temperament – simply physical ingredients, like a cake.

  SUNDAY 1 AUGUST

  For a week I have done little except eat, sleep, work, play the piano and read and reflect. You would think that time would pass slowly. At times it did, notably when I was working on something not interesting in itself but not dull enough to be done without thinking. Meanwhile I have accidentally improved in relation with Rosa who approves of a quiet life. This adds to the pleasure of the moment and incidentally will be an advantage in the future if I should have to explain that I want a baby and why.

  The Mercury yesterday contained the best journalism on the Spanish war I have seen – an account of Guernica by Geo Steer. It was unexaggerated, concrete, and one of the most moving articles I have ever read. It is terrifying to think that Guernica is merely an experience in miniature of what most of the big towns in Europe will suffer in the next 10 years unless a miracle happens. The blind futility and clumsiness of war is tragic. They suffer and die for nothing – no one is any better off. The incentive and principle for which the war is fought is utterly remote from them. To an uninterested spectator it must appear as nothing but a possession of the mind by an evil kind of insanity. I don’t know what to do. Pacifism seems to be the only intelligent and logical view to hold but I have 2 misgivings about it: (1) should I have the courage to hold it (a) against other people or (b) if there were any possibility of the whole of England going pacifist ((b) means – is it possible to be a pacifist and enjoy the shelter for everyone by non-pacifists?) (2) Is it merely sheer terror of war itself that makes me a pacifist? I shouldn’t choose any other course if material things only were at stake (I think), but there are some ideas and principles for which resistance might be worthwhile. Does my inclination to pacifism depend on fear or laziness in resisting evil? I don’t know. There is of course in addition to these ‘theoretical’ misgivings the question of my job. Can one be a pacifist and work even in a small way for a government which isn’t? Gunther’s book Inside Europe is journalism but it is interesting. It shows Hitler as a neurotic – he never reads, never listens to anything but Wagner’s music. He has one passion and one aim which he follows with the strength and concentration of insanity. The fact that this passion (for German nationality) coincided with a strong but frustrated emotion common to all Germany gave him his power. It is appalling that peace depends to a large extent on the neurotic whims of one man.

  THURSDAY 12 AUGUST

  Lunched with Hip.* I quite enjoyed it. Peta is growing into a lovely child, very fair hair, dark blue eyes and black lashes. Intelligent and very happy. I explained that I was trying to keep a clear head, hence I had not intended to see Peta. She thought I would be asking for trouble to have a baby. I should hate having to work and leave it with a servant. Having made the break she thought I ought not to go back to the old relationship but cut it out and start afresh. She thought I should meet someone else. This is all quite sensible. I would if I could but it takes me ages to get on close terms and it is such trouble; also, how can I trust myself, in any case? I would have believed E more than anyone both for his present feeling and his judgement of the future and (to put it quite neutrally I won’t say his love died) less than 3 years after we first loved he ceased to feel any particular wish to be with me. I couldn’t endure marriage with a man who didn’t actively want my company anyway, and no one could want me more than he did 4 years ago. Whatever another man said or felt in the heat of love I should be certain it would not last. A child? Well, being independent even with that would be preferable to keeping an unenthusiastic husband tied to one.

  During the last week I have been better. I don’t love E less – if anything more – but I have reached (temporarily, I suppose, only) a new feeling – almost tranquillity and serenity, less worried and stirring. The difficulty is to sustain a kind of detached quietness and passiveness without just relaxing into sloth or sorrow. My attitude to him of a year ago seems utterly remote now. It seems, as I look back at it, to have been made up of a collection of fears and wishes (a fear of him, of having a baby, of people finding out, of his love waning or waxing, of mine for him leaping up or dying down, a wish to see more of him or less of him, to do particular things and spend my time in particular ways and to evoke similar wishes in him), always looking ahead except for the short times when I was just shot through with ecstasy. I can see where I was wrong at the beginning – I could not trust to my love for him, I was afraid. I ought to have known and to have insisted on K being told then. It would have been worse at the time and might have finished our connection but I am certain it was right and if we had all survived we should have been happier and much more peaceful.

  WEDNESDAY 25 AUGUST

&n
bsp; Nearly 2 weeks since I wrote here. I had a completely ‘cold’ letter from E this morning asking me for the address of the eye place. It was unexpected and made my heart pound for a time. I wrote at lunchtime and (I think) kept just as cool. I hope so.

  I shall have to begin a new book next time.

  SUNDAY 29 AUGUST

  There seems to be little point in doing anything now. For the moment I feel quite finished. On Monday night I had a letter from E. The 3 months had had no effect – he was worse, if anything. I felt quite hopeless but I wrote to him a reply. Another letter this morning which proved what I have known – that my effort had been wasted. He is quite out of reach. He can think of no one but Kathleen. To her he can sacrifice his own sense of right, and the child, not to mention me. What is the secret of her power over him? She is like some vampire spreading death and desolation. So small a thing would satisfy me. What can I do? It is so lonely. People pass like shadows in the sunshine. I talk to them – joke, work, grumble, while all the time my self stands apart desolate and cold and broken and bitter – pushed down lest its unhappiness leap up to desperation. How can I distil some meaning from it? Break the evil circle of hate and misery?