Diary of a Wartime Affair

by Doreen Bates

  THURSDAY 9 SEPTEMBER

  I was dismal but managed to get submerged in work to such an extent that I was oblivious of time from 11.45–1.45. This lack of time sense is rather frightening. I had the impression that 20 hours or 20 days or 20 weeks or 20 years might just as easily have passed and I had done nothing with them.

  It is odd that I can concentrate on other things quite well. Everything seems a dismal grey but (possibly because there is no conflict in my mind – I have the peace which E needs – much good it does me!) my mind seems empty, bleak. I find no delight in anything but music.

  FRIDAY 10 SEPTEMBER

  I felt today at times as if I was just beginning to un-numb, to feel what has happened. Instead of being quite pleasant at home with no animation I found myself impatient and edgy. One goes on thinking automatically on the same lines long after it has become useless, e.g. I began to economize and save up, have small lunches etc. Now, when there is nothing to save for, I still go on. Partly habit, partly because I have no desire to do more now. Is it a desperate, forlorn hope that things can’t be as bad as they seem, that after all, the bottom hasn’t fallen out of the world, that the point of life has not been broken, that the machine has not gone into reverse? The irony of it is as exquisite. Almost I can endorse Lear, ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.’ What is so unbearable to me is the inaction, this suffering in quiet, in which all I must do is to ensure that no hint of its existence should be conveyed even by expression.

  SUNDAY 12 SEPTEMBER

  I had a long letter from E yesterday (15 pages) which made me realize it is hopeless. Then I went with the parents to see The First Legion which is a play about the Jesuits, the psychological effects on various men of a miracle. It is much to its credit that it held my attention. This afternoon I wrote to him – rather a last will and testament – but I was calmer than I had been at all. I knew what I wanted to say. I had been pondering over it ever since I read his letter yesterday morning. After I had posted it I felt better, very clear-minded, light-headed as it were and perhaps a little exalted. I felt a peace which comes of feeling that nothing can be worse, that you have touched the lowest point, that all your fears are realized and yet you still live. I even thought, ‘I will write a Te Deum, a dedication of praise and thanks.’ I would remember only the happiness, the joy, the ecstasy – keep only the good things which he gave me. So I felt until I had a bath, until I was confronted with my own body, that body which he only among men has seen and touched. Then with the swift suddenness of a hailstorm I was swept with physical desire. I would have faced torture for the mere comfort of his physical presence, to feel again his hands, his lips on my breasts, the smooth coolness of his back beneath my hands, the touch of his hair, ruffled by my fingers, the pain of his coming in to me. The calmness so carefully imposed by my will just vanished in a gust of physical passion.

  What can I do? I am afraid, terrified, I don’t know how to keep my soul in this dark place, where is no thing and no one to comfort me, to guide me. I cannot see where to put my feet, I can feel the wings of evil, the evil in my own mind beating terrifyingly around me. It would be a good thing if I could pray with faith.

  MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER

  I have felt dead and numb all day. I made great efforts not to let my mind rest on E. This deadness is an anaesthetic, preferable to the violent pain of feeling, safer at this stage. I have never felt like this before for so long, a sense of unreality, of remoteness, with just this perpetual ache. Like a nightmare. I feel I must awaken soon and find things have come right. It is awful having to stop habitual trains of thought, ways of seeing things. I seem unable to grasp all at once and all of me that it is finished; he is dead to me, dead by his own will and choice. It was easy (comparatively) to make my resolution; today comes the harder task of keeping it. I will try to finish this day without crying – it can be done.

  The only tiny compensation is the peace which comes of suffering the worst I have feared for years, of knowing there is nothing more. I have never been so free from fear. I didn’t have the slightest shoot in the thunderstorm. I remember thinking it was odd that I had never been able to overcome it before.

  I am so thankful that I can sleep. I even slept last night, tired out with feeling and thinking. If only there seemed to be the slightest point in waking up.

  THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER

  I had a letter from E this morning. It made me happier. Not that he said anything to suggest even the faintest ground for hope. He is clearly grateful to me for resolving his conflict but he is still completely obsessed with his duty to K. He reminds me of a cross between Abelard and Sue in Jude the Obscure. I thought Hardy was incredible in his picture of Sue’s gradual loss of intellect to emotion. I couldn’t believe that Sue, being intelligent, would have abandoned Jude just when he needed her to satisfy her conscientious scruples. I can believe it now. It is almost parallel with E. The shock which jolted the conscience into irrepressible action is even similar – the death of his mother in E’s case, the death of her children in Sue’s. It is quite extraordinary. I always felt the ominous similarity but I saw the parallel between Jude and E, which ran like a motif through all our relationship. I didn’t see myself as like Sue (tho’ he could perceive a similarity). It never occurred to me that he would end by a revulsion like Sue’s. We never discussed the parallel. I never told him how I felt about it from some obscurely superstitious feeling that it would strengthen the omen to put it into concrete expression. It was he that said I was more like Sue than any other woman in literature, as long ago as 1933. It is odd.

  FRIDAY 24 SEPTEMBER

  An interview with Russell (my plumber Enquiry Case)’s Accountant, Buckmaster. He called at 11.0 and went at 12.20 and not before he had told me his life history, with emphasis on the fact that he was a bachelor but would marry if he could afford it. He had already said that he knew the first time he had seen me that we should think alike on a lot of things. He wound up with, ‘Take care of yourself.’ He did not say anything direct and he did nothing – didn’t even shake hands with particular warmth but I am pretty certain I could marry him if I gave him any encouragement. This is all very odd and most unofficial. He has had a roving life, never made any money, looks a bit as if he drinks (watery eye) and is stone deaf in one ear. Well! Well! I can’t deny I have thought of him. It gives me self-confidence to realize I can hold a man’s attention, but how I long for E. I sent a letter to him today.

  SUNDAY 26 SEPTEMBER

  Today I must decide what I am going to do this winter. The following are possible: (1) cut off amusement and cram for Psychology finals next June. The advantage of this would be (a) I should work hard, (b) I shouldn’t have time for repining, (c) I should have something tangible to show at the end; (2) go to Joad’s Ethics lectures at Birkbeck. He is stimulating and I should do more work for him but the associations would be heart-breaking; (3) try some left politics; (4) try Mass Observation,* or a combination of 2, 3 and 4. (1) Psychology (seriously) would be good if I go on feeling there is no point in anything without E. If I can survive without drowning my sorrow in work it will be better to do one of the other things, if only because I should be less solitary. Solitude, beyond a moderate amount, becomes a habit and can be unhealthy. On the whole, perhaps Ethics and Mass Observation is the best. I shouldn’t have to have dinner in town.

  MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER

  Oh, I am so weary of trying not to think of him and of trying to think sensibly about him if I must remember him. Love is like a disease or like an evil mist which seeps into one’s mind, is in every breath one draws, is part of everything one thinks or sees or does. It is 3 weeks since he first wrote to me, 17 weeks since I saw him. How long will I go on like this, if I do go on? If it has a physical basis perhaps I shall recover when my ovaries wither in perhaps 10–15 years. With him physical desire was the driving force; when it waned he seemed not to want me much or so much. But with me it has never been insistent. Still, it seems the only
hope. Now my mind feels poisoned – with love for E and hate for K. I wish her dead but that would not, in reality, improve things. Our love – spoilt, all the spontaneity is gone.

  WEDNESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER

  What can I do? There is no peace. Always I see with my mind E as he was. I can hardly believe he is as he is. If I could but forget! The country is the worst place of all now. He quickened so immeasurably my appreciation that now it is not merely that I can feel no more zest than before I knew him. It is an active want. Before, I didn’t miss what I hadn’t known. Now I feel a perpetual and conscious want. I am better if I don’t go. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel as I feel, not even K. What is so hard is to know that she wouldn’t anyway suffer just what I suffer because she has never enjoyed that quality of companionship. He has given us different things.

  What can I do? I know I am mentally ill. I cannot make my mind look forwards or even consider only the moment, I can only look back. If only I could amputate him from my mind I should be better. At this moment I would not keep even the memory of happiness with him. ‘If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.’ The thought of him obsesses me, paralyses me, comes between me and everything. It is a disease and I don’t know how to control it. That it should come to this – I didn’t think his love would wane, I believed him. It was inexperience. I would still believe him over any other man. I would never expect another man to go on loving me. I suppose it was a subconscious realization that the life had gone out of his love that made me want a baby last Nov, as a substitute.

  THURSDAY 30 SEPTEMBER

  A great amount of work had accumulated in one day’s leave. It was just as well – I tackled it with concentration from 10.0 till 1.30 and from 2.20–5.30 without pause. Another sunny day but this evening it seemed colder.

  Went to Joad’s lecture on Ethics. It required some effort and I felt haunted by E all the way from the office till I got home. In a way I resent my feeling for him. It tyrannizes over my judgement. I can see he is not worth feeling so miserable about. There is really not much to be said for a man who satisfies his physical desire and as it dies discovers his conscience (that is what it comes to, however nicely one can put it), who refused the only thing I ever asked of him, not because he thought it would be bad for me but because he simply didn’t want it. Yet, tho’ I can see all this – and the realization of it will perhaps save me from letting pity and inexperience lead me to such an emotional cul-de-sac again – it has no effect at all on my feeling, knowing all this.

  FRIDAY 1 OCTOBER

  I don’t know quite what to do. I had an appointment this morning with Russell (my plumber enquiry case) and his accountant Buckmaster. The main point was to form an impression of Russell and to give him the white paper. He was a solid, rather repressed-looking man who said he was over 60, wore a quite good quiet brown suit but a dark blue tie with white spots. He seemed the old-fashioned, independent Victorian type – shrewd, opposed to all new-fangled methods. I could imagine him resenting having to pay tax. He said he had been ill off and on with asthma, catarrh, stomach trouble, kept going with doing three men’s work. The deposit was his last savings. Running his business he was an asset to the country and so on. Buckmaster naturally had little to say. I felt a bit nervous at the beginning but settled down to the job not too badly perhaps. The interview lasted an hour.

  At 1.0 Buckmaster rang me up to know what I thought and to say how he had admired my handling of Russell and more of that strain – what an interesting set of books, he had enjoyed himself, perhaps he could borrow a book on Buddhism. It would take him perhaps a fortnight to do the accounts but if I wanted to see him before he would be only too pleased to come. He concluded, ‘Goodbye, little one.’ I don’t know what to do about him. It is of course soothing to my vanity to realize I can impress a man. It gives me pleasure to think that here is someone who, however superficially, is interested in me. I am inclined to flirt a little. I haven’t encouraged him at all unless failing to choke him off completely is encouragement. I have answered his comments, made non-committal comments on his unofficial remarks and, so far as my attitude went, kept strictly official. There are 2 points to remember: (1) I dislike mixing official and personal relations. It was bad enough with E, it is worse with an accountant handling a BD case. On the other hand I shall be bound to keep on more or less friendly terms till the case is settled; (2) I don’t like him as a person. There is little danger of my feelings being involved. I don’t know him sufficiently to know whether his might be. There is always a risk of hurting or being hurt. In this case it isn’t worth the risk.

  MONDAY 4 OCTOBER

  I found a letter marked Personal at the office. It contained a cutting from a Sunday paper of an article on Charm with underlinings in red ink and a little note on the back of a card from Buckmaster explaining how the article applied to me. It made me a little sad. It is obvious that he must be thinking about me from the mere fact that he couldn’t keep his mind off me even while he was reading the newspaper. Poor thing! I hadn’t the faintest notion I had impressed him the first time I saw him. It is useless and can only lead to disappointment and sorrow. I shouldn’t marry him – there would be no point. I shouldn’t want his child. In any way and in both senses E has spoilt me.

  WEDNESDAY 6 OCTOBER

  I was comparatively successful yesterday in refraining from remembering that on the 5th Oct 4 years ago E in desperation told me he loved me. I have not been so successful today. I have thought of him and wanted him persistently. It seems so stupid just to waste the elaborate understanding we built up in six and a half years, at least it seems so to me who wants it to continue and not just to disintegrate. I can never realize that the understanding was valuable only in so far as both of us wanted it. Now that he does not it is useless to regret it. It has already disintegrated. There is nothing to waste. It must be chiefly vanity that refuses to let me realize that in spite of all he said and did, I have failed to satisfy him and his love has waned. Perhaps wanting the child was a last desperate gamble.

  THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER

  I have got behind with these notes mainly because I went to stay with Ella at her flat in Richmond on Friday evening and came home on Sunday before dinner.

  On Monday evening I went to hear Russell at LSE. Afterwards, with an hour to spare before Joad, I had tea and missed E as much as I have ever missed him. I felt utterly desolate, absolutely alone. How he would have talked of the lecture, picked holes in it, enlarged on it. I am trying so hard to extract value out of the things I do by myself. There is no reason at all why I shouldn’t but my mind somehow won’t kindle. It is like a fire of damp sticks. I get less than half what I got with him. I liked Joad, and the other people are friendly.

  On Tuesday Buckmaster rang up. He had looked me up in the Civil Service list in the library and was much impressed – said I might get anywhere if I was keen but was I ambitious? If not, what did I want? Still, he didn’t want me to become a blue-stocking. He had thought of me every day. Well, strange as it seems, after he rang off I found I had got quite stiff with sheer physical stimulation. I thought – I suppose some people would think they were in love. But what a complete difference. I felt bitter that E should expose me to such humiliation.

  TUESDAY 19 OCTOBER

  I wrote to E on Sat to ask him if he would like The Years. Had a letter this morning. Quite chatty and unconcerned. He advised me to listen to Bach till I feel better. This complacency annoys me. How simple! As tho’ one’s problems could be solved by aesthetic contemplation. If it did work it would simply be a drug – lose oneself in the music. I know how unhealthy that is from my own feeling. It is just another form of intoxication – I might just as well take to drink for all the good it would do. I am surprised that he should consider it. But I suppose I don’t know him now. People are always changing, and more rapidly than usual in an emotional crisis. The E I knew and loved, and still love is dead.

  THURSDAY 21 OCTOBER

  This afternoon Bu
ckmaster rang up about Russell’s accounts for 32/3 and 33/4 and added some personal chit chat, including what did ‘D’ stand for? Would I come out to dinner tonight? I refused at once but not before a whole medley of reasons rushed through my mind of which a few were (a) I had on old clothes, (b) I had promised to be home for dinner which was steak pudding, (c) I didn’t want to be rushed and felt in a panic. But I didn’t discourage him – said I would some other night. I told him we couldn’t fix an appointment about Russell after Monday till the following week. He asked why and I told him I was going away. He enquired where and said if it hadn’t been so far he would have come down for a day. Asked if I minded what he said – didn’t want to give me a shock etc – I had to say to him, ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed in me.’ I don’t know what to do – it is inevitable that one of us will suffer for it if I let it go on. I suppose I shall, as usual, drift into a position from which it is difficult to emerge. I distrust my interest (such as it is) in him – how can it be real when I want E so much?

  TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER

  I have felt as if I were living in a dream – the same feeling of unreality, the same sense of compulsion, of moving inevitably, involuntarily on a pre-destined path – the same sense of suffering rather than acting. Buckmaster (B) came yesterday 11.05 and went at 1.50. A large proportion – quite large – was devoted to Russell and the rest to how he felt. He told me if he could have his way he would like to live with me in the country. He didn’t use the word ‘love’, but he made it clear. He said he felt it before I said a word, at the first glance, but he wished me to understand it was not simply physical desire, tho’ he was only human. He told me of his work, his struggles to live, his poverty. He had nothing to offer – he didn’t know how he would do next year. He even still owed money he had borrowed to live. He has nice hands – big, clean, well cared-for, firm. Before he went he held my hands, my elbows. I was surprised to find I was trembling and very wobbly after I had said goodbye. In the afternoon he rang up about a visit to Russell and then asked if I was all right. Was my heart weak? He had noticed my lips turn quite blue just before he went. I can’t understand this; one would think I would be used to it. I was as upset as the first time E kissed me. I recovered in the afternoon but after going to Russell’s lecture at LSE I was dead tired.