by Doreen Bates
SUNDAY 4 JUNE
Yesterday I gave E my poem; not good, but it gave me some satisfaction to have got anything down. He was nice. He said, ‘Just for a minute the wall was melted,’ (the emotional barrier which the thought of K produces in his mind – it blocks his spontaneous feeling for me). Perhaps he has spoken to her by now. But what can I do when things are so hopeless at home?
The way is dark and long.
TUESDAY 13 JUNE
Still E has done nothing towards discussion with K – ‘no opportunity’ during the weekend. Nevertheless I still think he has made up his mind to do so and, having resolved, makes him easier to get in touch with. He has even recovered some of his old bickering and gaiety. We may have a day off on Friday.
FRIDAY 16 JUNE
Today has been lovely, in spite of almost continuous rain till 4.0. We had our day and went to Reigate, walked up the hill and through the beech trees. We met four girls on horseback but no one else all the way to Box Hill Road.
My stockings got soaked from the wet grass – the path was so narrow that the grasses and sorrel just nodded water on my legs and E jeered. Along the road it continued to rain and at 1.35 we reached the Hand in Hand nearly at Box Hill. It was a most efficient re-built pub and we stayed till 3.25, first having a large and good lunch of tomato soup, roast pork and new potatoes, hot rolls, butter and cheese, cider and coffee, and then warming and drying ourselves before the fire. It looked as bad when we set out to walk to Box Hill station, with a thick Scotch mist, but before descending we loved by a green licheny beech. It was sweet to feel his hands and his lips and to ruffle his hair. I cried at the sweetness and at the pity of it – how unhappy I made him and yet I would die for him. When I had combed my hair and buttoned my mackintosh he called that the rain had ceased and the sun was coming out. There was a streak of blue sky and the land looked more beautiful than ever after the rain. We caught a train at 2 minutes to 5 and between Box Hill and Leatherhead we loved – such a waste of his precious little sperms – but still, it was sweet and I loved him utterly.
A good day in spite of the rain and E said, ‘Of course,’ too.
TUESDAY 20 JUNE
E kept on harping on Higher Grade (deliberately) and that is an edgy subject for me. I know I don’t deserve it and shan’t get it and I feel half as tho’ I ought to have tried, and more if we need the money in the family. It is uncomfortable to think of. In these circumstances instead of saying nothing I gloomed to E.
SUNDAY 25 JUNE
On Friday I felt desperately gloomy. I told E that if he insisted that K must know before I try to have a baby I should write to her today. Alternatively, I would try to have a baby next week and not tell her. He said he hadn’t had a chance to speak to her but agreed that he had been ages. Would I not write but wait till Monday? In the end I did. Has he told her? I don’t know; I doubt it. But I find the strain of these weekends of wondering impossible. Come what may I shall take a decisive step this week. It isn’t as tho’ we get any pleasure or satisfaction while he keeps putting it off. We don’t. He is generally dismal and inhibited and doesn’t want to do anything at all. If he is willing I must seize the opportunity, but I don’t know what will happen at home. Well, I can just cope with one thing at a time. She is the first hurdle. If I surmount that it will be time to consider the next.
MONDAY 26 JUNE
He has said nothing to K – he said he must comply with my ‘hard bargain’ alternative. First I felt content to snatch the chance of a baby however it came, but he looked so dismal I shan’t be able to hold him to it. He says he can only talk to K on a holiday. Always something in the future.
WEDNESDAY 28 JUNE
I have almost made up my mind not to hold E to his promise to try to begin a baby now. We had a long discussion, the best part of 2 lunchtimes and he has promised that whatever happens, whether K is reasonable or not, whether she just crumples up even, he will give me a chance to have a baby even if he has to cut me off. It is certain that whatever she or I do or say he won’t leave her – doesn’t want to – but I believe he is resolved to let me have a baby somehow. So altho’ the strain of waiting is intolerable there is less uncertainty and I suppose I shall do as he wishes. He was unobtrusively sweet to me today and I felt a little comforted.
WG was doing our reports today. He was nice to me – asked me if I would like a district. I would get a Special soon. He didn’t see why I shouldn’t get an HG if Miss Rogers could – if I didn’t I must appeal etc. I hate it. I have an ambivalent attitude to the question. In a way I should be personally gratified if I could get it, and gratified as a woman. I should feel I had not let the few women down. But I hate the window dressing and discreet trumpet blowing side of most of the people who have succeeded. I am not ambitious to be like most PIs. I don’t want to appeal and I think there are only two things that would make me: (a) if I need the money, (b) if I feel a sense of responsibility to the women. I can really only want one thing at a time and it is not promotion.
THURSDAY 6 JULY
E liked me on Tuesday I think, but not a word about a baby. He did not intend to speak to K at the weekend. There is nothing to do but wait with what patience I can produce. He has been quite lively.
When I got home tonight R was dismal. W was bad this morning, sick and a heart attack. Dr Warde came up this afternoon, said his heart was weakened. It is worrying as I feel R should not be alone all day. It is awful for her after the strain of these long months and the rising and falling of hopes of his recovery. M is sleeping with her tonight.
I must stop with this meagre note as I have to catch an early train. We have an appeal meeting at 10.15 and WG is taking me. I can’t get up to date with the work – too many interviews.
SUNDAY 16 JULY
I have been recovering from the gloom of last week. I may perhaps be able to have a baby next time. Discussed ways and means with M this morning while we had a stroll in Marden Park and sheltered from the rain. Anyway, I still hope.
E was nice at coffee yesterday – told me about the Hoopoe swans we saw at Whipsnade. The hen wouldn’t sit on 5 eggs so they removed the 2 fertile eggs to an incubator. Then the cock sat on the 3 others so they put back the 2. He hatched them and then the hen couldn’t resist the babies. As he went he said, ‘You’re very sweet’ – a little thing, but it has echoed through the weekend.
SUNDAY 23 JULY
E hopes to talk to K quietly after next weekend!!! Anyway, I have agreed not to have a baby this time but he says I may be able to next time i.e. end of August. It is surprising that he still thinks he will convert the future – ‘soon’, ‘in about a month’, ‘in a day or two’, ‘next weekend’, ‘after next weekend’ into ‘now’ – this moment.
TUESDAY 8 AUGUST
Back to the office and I am so tired, partly work, partly just seeing people. First SKC. WG was on leave till Thursday. We had coffee, talked about Suffolk; he gave me my cheque (which I needed to prevent my season ticket £6/5- from overdrawing me); he kissed me carelessly; this afternoon he brought me a cup of tea and suggested a taxi as it was raining; in the taxi I said he must not be flirtatious; I don’t know whether he is really hard-boiled or sensitive and this makes me hesitate how to treat him. It is obviously nothing but the most casual of past times with which he embroiders our technical chatter, casual for him and casual for me except that even so little stimulates me to want E and this makes me begin to feel unsettled and discontented and dissatisfied again, without the remotest chance of E wanting anything, even a day’s leave.
THURSDAY 10 AUGUST
WG did me good probably without knowing it. He is the most impersonally stimulating person I have met. He can infect one with interest and make one cut through the hedge of egotism and look abroad at other things and other people as can no one else I know. Today he lent me a book about Tibet – physical and spiritual. He was interested in Suffolk and looked at my cards. He liked the devil I sent him from Mildenhall and showed it to a friend
interested in music as it was playing a queer kind of organ. He must have talked for 2 hours altogether and it did me good.
THURSDAY 17 AUGUST
I am better than I was. Tuesday lunch was the turning point. E and I went to Lewis bookshop to get intelligence tests for David.* I felt just blocked, like an experiment that went wrong. In the evening I went to see Elsie and let off some steam. I felt a bit better and E said he knew it. He was nice. Today we talked shop and about David and I could take an interest in him without just wanting my own.
SKC has taken to calling me ‘Gertrude’ because he had an aunt called Gertrude ‘who used to nag me when I was young’. Awful! But he ‘has kept off the grass’. He betted me 4 half crowns to one that I would get HG before 31/8/41.
MONDAY 21 AUGUST
A bad weekend although the weather was perfect. On Saturday I cried and cried and yesterday I paid for it with a headache, but was less acutely depressed – numb. I suppose these outbursts are a kind of safety valve but they are physically bad and are getting too frequent, averaging once a week. Today I felt less bad, but for how long? I feel quite helpless to control the fluctuations, no more controllable than a cold in the head. I can feel my depression growing and have learnt how it will develop but I haven’t yet managed with my effort alone to avert an attack. Only a complete diversion or a word or two from E can affect it.
The political situation is appalling. Everyone seems to think that this will be the critical week. The Germans seem to be reaching a position from which they can’t retreat. The thunderstorms which burst this afternoon seemed a foretaste – the crash following the foreboding steamy calm.
TUESDAY 22 AUGUST
A fine day after a terrific thunderstorm yesterday afternoon (seven people killed in a park at Ilford). Lighter and cooler and drier.
The main preoccupation has been the international situation, the announcement of a mutual non-aggression pact between Germany and Russia which came as a bombshell this morning. Everyone talking about it – we had morning coffee on the strength of it. Well, the only thing to do is to wait. It looks black on the face of it but who knows what will happen. I wish the parents were out of Purley but it is difficult to cope with W.
E was full of the situation. I don’t know what to do. I am inclined to go ahead and insist but he is quite out of tune.
WEDNESDAY 23 AUGUST
I have bought two new books for diaries for 1 shilling – an act of faith for it seems improbable to the reason that I shall fill them.
Everyone is still bewildered and there is no definite news except that war preparations proceed. Tonight a broadcast about covering lights and blackouts. But the only thing certain seems to be that no one knows what will happen. London is like an ant-heap when one occasionally disturbs it with a fork.
E was quite obsessed at lunch. He said he was full of apprehension and no good in a crisis. I, on the other hand, if not absolutely better, am, at least relatively to other people, less gloomy. I feel that war removes my personal responsibility, tho’ I still feel the importance of my job of having a baby. I suggested, anyway, trying on Sunday, but he said he didn’t feel he could possibly. I said that this was a final refusal and of course I could not gainsay such an excuse. He said it was not often that he could plead it. I phoned this afternoon to ask him if he would go for a walk tomorrow. He said perhaps on Friday so I hastily stopped a letter making an appointment for Friday afternoon.
FRIDAY 25 AUGUST
I have been happy today. We have had today, perhaps the last day we shall ever have, and yet in spite of this it was lovely. Warm and close and thundery, tho’ the sun almost shone at times and no rain till 4.30. We went to Shepperton. He got into my carriage somewhere beyond Norbiton, when I was getting doubtful whether he would come, looking tired and worn and worried. He said he felt awful, hadn’t slept since 4.0. Upset inside and still suffering from wind. We walked gloomily down to the river and along the bank to about a quarter mile from Chertsey Bridge. We sat on the bank for over an hour and rested and I rubbed him so that the wind got better till at 1.0 he said he would have something to eat. We went to Chertsey and I made him have a whisky while I had a sherry and we went to the only possible place to eat, a little shop with homemade cake where we had Welsh rarebit and China tea. We walked back to the river and loitered along the bank and sat watching the moorhens and ducks and swans flying and little fish making rings on the water. In midstream the circles looked like straight lines coming and going. He enjoyed them and watched till it began to rain. We caught a bus back to Shepperton. He said it was a good idea and that he did feel better for it.
He rang up from Shepperton to Finsbury and heard that we had instructions to duplicate records this morning. Things still look bad, tho’ I feel that it is not inevitable. Anyway, it seems that nothing will happen till Sunday. Reen phoned and has offered to have R and W at Maidenhead. Mrs Parsons has just wired (11.25pm) that she can have them too, so we are getting some plans going. M had to report this morning but came home at 9.0 tonight.
MONDAY 28 AUGUST
I must note a little of what is happening, altho’ it is midnight. I had half a day’s leave to get the parents off to Maidenhead this afternoon. R was in hectic despair – kept envying Mrs Rideout who is unconscious in Purley Hospital. She has ‘worked till she dropped’, R says. M went down this evening and phoned me at 7.20 to say they were settling down well and had arrived at 4.55. I am sure it is a sensible thing to do, although I wondered and wondered. It is still impossible to follow what is happening but it looks far from hopeful. Still, it does seem clear that Hitler has failed to shake the UK and France and Poland at all, and that the German-Russian pact is not without its disadvantages. Spain and Japan have definitely changed direction. Italy is doubtful and perhaps holds the key to the future.
E has moved K a little. Anyway, she is thinking about taking her mother away, possibly to Bexington, if I ask Mrs Parsons not to mention my name! He is standing up to the situation well, altho’ he doesn’t expect to. He has been better since Friday, partly because he has been busy getting Finsbury 2 to duplicate the records. E phoned me yesterday morning and today we lunched at Waterloo. He asked me to arrange for M to let him know if anything happened to me and he promised that I should be told if he were hurt. I do hope if war comes it won’t begin till Osborne is back, then E won’t have to be there. I can feel that he likes to see me and that I somehow give him confidence, probably just because he can tell me how dithery he feels. Even this little comforts me. Before he went back today he suddenly kissed my fingers, a small gesture but so much from him. I never remember him doing such a thing before. I love him too much, too much for my peace.
SATURDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
It is nearly a fortnight since I wrote anything so I shall stop for ever if I don’t start now. The inevitable happened. On 1st September Hitler invaded Poland and on 3rd September England and France declared war on Germany. Since then the Germans have got nearly half way across Poland, tho’ Warsaw has not yet fallen. England has begun the blockade of Germany, raided Kiel, dropped leaflets over Germany and sent a force to France. France has got 12 miles inside Germany and is attacking the Siegfried Line. Up to now we have had no serious air raids but we carry gas masks everywhere. We have evacuated the big cities of children, mothers, cripples etc and there is complete blackout and nearly all buildings are sandbagged. The evacuees are trickling back, but when Poland has been coped with it will be our turn. Hitler is not at the moment concentrating on the west. We have had warnings – on the morning of the 6th from 6.50 am – 9.0. It was a perfect morning, dew and sunshine and blue sky. We had a leisurely breakfast and then watched the RAF planes coming and going and counted the balloons (I counted 175 without turning my head from the kitchen door).
We have been very unsettled. I slept at home on the 28th August alone but since then I haven’t been here alone at night. This meant that M or Elsie stayed here or I had to go somewhere else. Twice I have stayed in
Kilburn with the Robertsons (in M’s office). Very Scots, but pleasant and intelligent. Twice in the week and for each weekend we have been to Burchetts Green to see the parents. It is rather a squash especially when King comes too as he did last weekend. R was in poor spirits and found it difficult to see ahead. She gets on well with Reen but it is an uprooting and W has not been too well. It is a difficult task for her but as there are said to be eight guns at Kenley it is better for them to be away. I feel a little guilty at enjoying the freedom, such as it is, but we do our best to see them.
E was quite knocked over emotionally by the situation and could think of nothing but the war. This week we have lunched together every day and he has improved. I think he will let me have a baby and he may go away with K and her mother for a fortnight next week, and he hopes to tackle K (again, but perhaps he will – anyway, I can’t start for a month or so). He thinks the war will make it easier for me to have it.