Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  ***

  Tuesday 2 January 1940 Good morning, darling. I’m in Disgrace! It is all very sad – because it’s PA No. 1 I’m in Disgrace with – and it is, as you know, essential that Perfect and Beautiful Concord should prevail among the elaborate hierarchies of Public Adoration. Moreover it’s all because of a Cona,14 and although no-one realizes better than I what a vital spoke a Cona can be in the Wheel of Life, I sorrow at the thought of seeing Miss Sloane forever henceforth through a glass bulb darkly.

  And this is the story. The prelude goes back to the Friday on which I had lunch with you – (oh! that there were more such Fridays in the vacation calendar, but that is beside the point). On that day in the afternoon my mother telephoned me in a state of extreme agitation (at about 3.30) not, as you might suppose, to find out whether I had got back from lunch or not, but to cluck about our Cona, which had inconsiderately fallen to pieces in her hand – funnel and bulb – at one fell swoop. Could I please ring up Fortnum & Mason and ask them to send me the requisite spare parts which I could then bring back to Middleton in the evening. I said I could and would. I duly telephoned that ’igh-class emporium, and asked them to send the Cona round to Miss Alexander at the War Office before 5 o’clock. They didn’t – so I arrived home without it. My mother greeted me more in sorrow than in anger and suggested that I might collect the parcel on my way to the theatre with Lionel the next day. I said I would – but owing to the temperamental tendencies of the South Down motor-bus service, we missed the train we intended to catch, lunched on the next one & reached Victoria just in time to seize a taxi and get to HM’s theatre as the curtain was going up. We came out of the theatre into an impenetrable fog, bleated impotently for a taxi, took refuge in the Carlton – and were only able to get a taxi in time to catch the 6.18 train back to Middleton (we had intended to get the 5.30). My mother observed the absence of Cona much more in Anger than in Sorrow this time – but I promised faithfully to bring it back on Thursday (which was to be my first day at the office after Christmas) if I died in the attempt. Figures-toi donc mon chagrin when I got to the office, to find, No Cona awaiting me. I immediately set Wheels in Motion (not to say such wheels as were within wheels and therefore hardly worth mentioning), and telephones buzzing – and it finally transpired that F and M had delivered the parcel to the War Office – but that nobody seemed to know anything about it. It took me the whole day to get as far as this, (case histories got somewhat neglected in the process) and I left the office in the flappiest cluck of the century – and got back to Middleton – without the Cona. When my mother had recovered from her Swoon and decided not to cut me off with a jade cigarette holder, I explained the situation, and she was appeased. On Friday, as you already know, I did not go to the office – and yesterday was New Year’s Day, with the result that the train was in a Holiday Humour and I got to work an hour late. However, I tripped happily up the marble steps at 11.15 and burst into Miss Sloane’s room with ‘Mikado’ on my lips. ‘A Happy New Year’, I said convivially to Miss Sloane taking her hand warmly, and failing to notice the lack of response in her clasp. ‘A Happy New Year’, I added affectionately to Miss Fox – and I was just making my way to the Inner Doors to say the same thing to Leslie when a Frosty Silence hit me between the eyes, and trickled moistly down my nose. ‘Oh! er – yes?’ I said, retreating a step in acknowledgment and then my eye lighted upon a huge wooden crate addressed to ‘Miss Alexander – The War Office’. This, I thought, misguidedly, was better. ‘Aha,’ I said. ‘My Cona.’ ‘Yes,’ said Miss Sloane. ‘Your Cona,’ and her words froze into sharp icicles in the air before her. Something was wrong. There was a significant pause. ‘I was nearly court-marshalled15 during the weekend on account of your Cona,’ she added, and the vitriol dropped steaming and sizzling on to the desk. ‘Oh! were you?’ I muttered ineffectually. ‘I am sorry’ – and then the whole story poured out like wine out of the mouth of a narrow-necked bottle, which, as Rosalind knew, comes out not at all or all at once.16 It transpired that there was only one Miss Alexander on the permanent staff of the War Office and she (fate is unkind at times), works in MI5, which is the most Secret and Sinister branch of the Intelligence, and has a notice on the door of its department saying ‘No Admission except by Special Pass’. (I have often quailed, in passing, before this notice.) She was sure it was a bomb, and sent it off to Wormwood Scrubs to be opened (this is True, darling, though I shouldn’t blame you if you don’t believe it – it sounds too fantastic even to happen to me). When they found (at Wormwood Scrubs) that it was only a Cona, they sent it back – and enquiries were set on foot to locate the owner. The entire War Office by this time knew about it and Miss Sloane happened to overhear it talked of in a corridor and said (poor soul, she knew not what she did!) that there was a Miss Alexander working in the S of S’s department, thereby bringing the August and Collective wrath of MI5 on her innocent head for allowing Strange Parcels (which might easily be bombs) to be delivered at a Government Office. Furthermore, to add to her general sense of ill-being, F and M had spent the whole of Friday ringing me up about the Cona – thereby blocking the Official Line.

  And that is the story of the Cona. It was the first that ever burst into that silent sea,17 and I think – & Miss Sloane hopes, that it will be the last.

  I looked in the mirror this morning and was appalled at how plain I was. I’m so sorry, dear. I’ve known it for years but never so overwhelmingly as today. How Awful for you to have to look at me as often as you do. It is Very Beautiful of you.

  Saturday 6 January Darling, I’ve just this minute-as-ever-is finished writing to Leslie. Of course, I Know Nothing about the reason for Leslie’s resignation,18 and I never suspected for an instant that it was coming. I’m sorry – not because I agreed with his politics but because he knew how to remain human in a clogged and sluggish machine. (I mean Neville and his Naughty Ninepins.) He was a man (and still is, bless him – (Dear Leslie).) Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

  Sunday 7 January I am now unemployed. I had a cryptic telephone message from Miss Fox saying that, for reasons that I wotted of (or words to that effect) my services would not be required on Monday morning – or subsequently. Oh! darling, Leslie has been most notoriously abused (as Olivia said of Malvolio in a different connection). It is a Great Sorrow to me. I hope a nasty judgement descends on someone for this. I shall just go on Adoring – and Hope.

  Joyce and I had a fantastic journey to London on Friday – with Sir Alan Cobham.19 He’s an Awful man. He talked all the way about the ‘Dirty Reds’. (‘Pity,’ he said, slappin’ his thigh, ‘Pity Germany went in with ’em. Why, if she’d attacked ’em, she’d ’ave gone through ’em like a dose o’ salts – what? And we’d have bin in the background, sittin’ pretty. Suited our book, what? Dirty Reds. I flew the next aeroplane from Goering in a race in Germany once – and I beat him. Ha! Ha! Got £1,000 for it too. Not bad goin’ – a thousand pounds for beating a dirty narzi – what?’) He then went on to talk of Famous People I Have Met – but two can play at that game – especially if one of them is Really Trying – and it didn’t take me long to leave him standing. Joyce sat convulsed with mirth in a corner, and my voice was all aquiver with the giggles too. It was like something out of a play. Silly old man.

  Saturday 27 January Darling, I’ve got a grey hair – I mean white! I found it this morning in the Library – and I rushed off to the Catalogue Room to tell Joyce – in a dramatic stage whisper. There was a smallish man at the next catalogue who resented the interruption – he turned round (perhaps in order to catch a glimpse of the celebrated hair, which I was holding away from my head with two fingers – perhaps not) and it was Dr Bernard Lewis!20 He thought I was mad before, my dear love, now he’s sure of it! Isn’t it Awful?

  I saw John Gielgud in Trinity Street this morning. He looked old & plain & knobbly – and he carries his nose higher than any man I’ve ever seen – with his head thrown right back – he looks lik
e a parrot that’s trying to make its beak look retroussé! Fantastic!

  Monday 5 February I didn’t sleep last night, Gershon. Not on account of the Warning – but because you are reproaching yourself on my account. Listen, my dear love. I have known, ever since there was anything to know, exactly what your attitude was – and because of this there has always seemed a touch of irony in the kindly advice of Mrs Turner, Joyce & Joan Friedman who (in that order) advised me to take stock of my intentions before I went Any Further with you.

  I told Joyce (but not Mrs Turner or Joan) that I sincerely and honestly believed that in this matter I was not being unfair to you, because you knew and I knew that my Intentions would change according to your wishes. She said, yes, but I must consider the question of whether I would be prepared to make a drastic change in my attitude to marriage should the occasion arise. I said that it would be unfair to myself even to consider that question, unless the occasion arose – and I didn’t believe that it ever would arise. She said that she thought I was deliberately evading the issue – but I maintained that since my whole plan of living was based on the assumption that I didn’t want to marry, I dared not reconsider it, since I believed that you had shifted the basis of our relationship only because you thought I was safeguarded from being seriously hurt when it ended, by my views on marriage. And now you aren’t sure, are you dear, whether I am safeguarded by them? And neither am I – but that is my fault and not yours. After all, you told me very seriously, quite a long time ago to hang onto my independence, and you’ve often told me that you’d never met the woman you wanted to marry. So, darling, please believe that you have nothing with which to reproach yourself – and all I want, is that our relationship should go on until you are tired of it – and it won’t be any more difficult for me later than sooner – since it is quite clear in my mind (I hope) that the break must come – and, as far as I’m concerned, the longer it is put off, the better.

  As for my changed attitude to Forwardness, I haven’t any regrets about that, either (though I’m glad I still think the same about Wantonness). I feel, rather arrogantly, that the nobleness of life is to do thus, when such a twain & such a mutual pair can do it.

  I’m afraid all this sounds rather clumsy & solemn, darling – but I want to be faithful, even at the risk of expressing myself stupidly.

  In conclusion, darling, please don’t worry about me. ‘I wonder, by my troth, what thou & I did till we loved’ and now – ‘you are all states and all princes I. Nothing else is, Princes do but play us.’21

  Monday 19 February Last night you were wondering about Aubrey, darling. Wonder no more – I had a letter from him this morning – written in a barracks room which he was sharing with twenty vociferous & newly-inoculated privates – all singing ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’. He’d just had a meal consisting mainly of spinach. (‘Dear Leslie,’ he says in an embittered parenthesis – and I can’t say I blame him in the circumstances.) You shall see the letter when we meet – but I’ll keep it for the present so as to be able to answer it point by point – as is my way.

  Sunday 25 February It really has been a very varied day. I had a terrific discussion with Jennifer about the way Men of Genius treat their wives (the particular instances in question were Shelley, Byron, Milton & Dickens). She said all the wives must have been Fools to Put Up With It. I said, with Infinite Wisdom born of Age & Experience that if they (the wives) were fond of them (the Geniuses) I expected they thought it was worth it. She snorted & said Tush, or something equally intolerant – & added that No Man was Worth Anything unless he knew how to treat his wife. Shelley & Co. were therefore all hypocrites – posing as social reformers indeed, when they’d have been better employed in reforming their own conjugal habits. (Further snort.) Women who married Geniuses, she added, were fools. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove,22 I said mildly – but I’m afraid she thought it was a quotation from ‘The Desert Blooms’23 – so it didn’t carry much weight. Ah! me.

  Monday 18 March Oh! I’m so tired, darling. Mr Turner hammered on my door at seven, this morning – and it seemed such a short time since you’d left, that I thought you must have come back to collect something you’d forgotten! I almost said – ‘Come in, darling’, but fortunately I woke up, properly, just in time. Poor Mr Turner – he’d never have been the same again – and it would probably have disorganized the Administration of Justice at the Saffron Walden Courts (where he’s appearing today) very seriously. Think what he was spared – if only he knew!

  It’s been a wearing day. Aubrey drove Semiramis24 to London – just as if she were an Army lorry, darling. I shall never be the same again. Occasionally, he thought Semiramis was a motor-bicycle, and that was even worse. Outside the Blue Boar I met Raphael Loewe.25 When I said I was on my way to collect Aubrey – he said intensely ‘Ah! yes – he left me at eleven last night’ just as though he were describing a Tender assignation which he felt to be Very Beautiful. Then he wished me a happy vac in an impassioned voice – & vanished – it was a Beautiful moment, in its way.

  The Nester baby circumcision was Awful. As soon as I got to the hotel, I went to see Duncan – leaving Aubrey & Mrs Turner to drink coffee with my mother. I suddenly had a Horrible Thought and, parting hastily from Duncan, I rushed into the drawing room & asked my mother – d’une voix mourante – whether we’d actually have to witness the circumcision. (I’m frightened of shots in films & plays – my dear love – but it’s all as nothing to the Terror I should feel at seeing a smallish, pinkish baby wriggling beneath the surgeon’s knife.) She said rather coldly that it would not be necessary – it was obvious that she thought that certain things should not be discussed in mixed company – and even more obvious that circumcision was among these things. I’m a Great Sorrow to my mother, Gershon – even on my first day in the Family Bosom and that is a Heartly Sorrow to me. Ah! well.

  At lunch – I was wedged between Dr & Mrs Weizmann. They both ignored me acidly & ate steadily – but I did elicit two words from Dr W which is at least a beginning. After about half an hour of agonized silence during which I looked at his beard – and thought of you – and sorrowed – I Plunged. ‘I think you know a friend of mine,’ I said – adding helpfully ‘Aubrey Eban’. ‘Nice chap,’ he replied distantly – and silence reigned again. Not a very fruitful morning, darling.

  Tuesday 19 March Oh! darling – London is close and clammy & tomorrow is Wednesday and I shan’t be having lunch with you – and I have a headache – & my mother saw a lad we know mollocking on a sofa in the Hotel lounge & said some harsh things about public mollockers – and Life is a Great Sorrow to me – but it has its Solaces too.

  Thursday 21 March Yesterday afternoon Basil & Nellie Ionides came to tea. Basil was in a new blue tweed country suit – his face all round & pink & sunlit – looking altogether more like a hand-printed smock than ever. Nellie was in black, and obviously on a Higher Plane, every inch of her. Soon after they’d gone Horace and his wife arrived. Horace was on the way to a Chess Tournament, and too preoccupied with his Next Move to say very much. When he’d gone his wife launched excitedly upon a series of Intimate Revelations about Flaubert’s love-life. She’d just got to the point where he ‘threw his whore out of the house – literally, my dear. But of course he was in love with his mother (wonderful woman!) all his life’ – when my mother came in.

  Saturday 23 March D’you remember that in a letter from London at the beginning of this academic year, I outlined at some length and in detail, the development of my attitude towards ‘darling’? Well, I’ve progressed a good deal since then – not only do I toss it off with the utmost ease, verbally and graphically, (there was a time, Gershon, when I always had to ponder for half an hour before saying it – and so when it eventually did emerge – it had always ceased to be relevant) but if it’s absent from your letters, it’s such a Sorrow to me (in a minor way) that I almost cluck!!!

  M
onday 25 March D’you remember my telling you about the harsh things my mother said about my childhood friend who was, (I gathered from Dark Hints) mollocking in the lounge of the Mayfair with a girl for whose reputation my mother wouldn’t have traded a fig? Well, Aubrey was there at the time and the incident gave rise to some interesting Revelations which I will quote in full – because they are so Beautiful.

  ‘When I left you on Tuesday I looked avidly round the hotel lobby seeking your compatriot whose violations of the Moral Code stirred such virtuous indignation in Room 426. Sure enough, there he was, but not in flagrante delicto. A somewhat dishevelled young lady was re-decorating herself … and it seemed that neither participant was a believer in the Worse-Than-Death-Concept.

  I would regard a hotel lobby & battle-dress as uncongenial conditions for mollocking. But neither would I sit around in the King’s Uniform in a hotel lobby eating an orange. But – let it go no further –’ (he wasn’t talking about you though, darling – he knew I’d tell you) ‘in private life and all unbeknownst I do Eat Oranges … (the dots are to give time for completing the analogy.)

  In this connection my Greatest Sorrow is the shattering effect I have on middle-aged married women who succumb long before any offensive is contemplated, whereas those with fewer attachments & less experience regard me with the same platonic affection as one has for the Encyclopaedia Britannica – and ostensibly for the same reasons. But all this belongs to a future volume on Sofas I have Mollocked On …’

  Dear Aubrey. I didn’t tell him what mollocking meant – it came to him all-in-a-flash while he was listening to us talking at tea the Sunday before last. (Oh! my dear love – is that only a week-and-a-day ago?)