Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  Wednesday 4 February Darling, I’m having a day’s sick-leave and I’ve remembered what it was I had to tell you yesterday – one or two odd anecdotes for your concert.

  You know, Churchill, even in his interlude of back-benching, was renowned for his verbosity – but his rich flow of oratory was not always looked upon with the same adulation as is accorded to it now. It is said that one day he met a tubby and ungainly political opponent in the lobby of the House. They disliked one another cordially, and Churchill dug him playfully in the flabbiest part of his Massif Central and said: ‘Well, well, when can we expect the Happy Event – and what are you going to call it?’ The other man looked at him Balefully, and then said coldly, ‘Well, if it’s a boy, I shall call it John and if it’s a girl, I shall call it Mary, but if, on the other hand it is, as I strongly suspect, only wind – Then I shall call it Winston.’

  Thursday 5 February Darling, Joan and I talked exhaustively and comprehensively of Joan yesterday. I told her what I thought – quite dispassionately and uncensoriously – and she put forward her defence – which she obviously believes very sincerely – as long as she was sure of Ian’s love she wanted nothing else – but the shock of finding that his attitude had changed was such that she had to hold on to something, and Mr Sims was at hand and he was reassuring and comforting. She makes no demands on him nor he on her. I can’t accept their relationship with any degree of assurance, darling, and I told her so – but on the other hand, I’m not prepared to sit in judgement on either of them – and so, having once said what I think, I shan’t discuss the subject again.

  Darling, I rang up Mrs Eban last night and she’s looking forward to seeing us all in the early afternoon on Sunday. She says she’s very much looking forward to meeting me – which is very Civil of her. She was so Voluble on the telephone that I wasn’t able to ask her if she’d heard from Aubrey. Her voice reminds me a little of my handwriting, if you see what I mean. Darling, the Daily Mirror Psychologist says that people with Small Cramped Handwriting are always very economical if not mean! Am I economical, if not mean, darling? No, I was afraid you wouldn’t think so.

  Thursday 12 February The Egyptian Embassy reception was terribly dreary. The foot of the great marble staircase was banked with fresh daffodils and paper peonies – and the reception rooms crowded with meaningless women in mink and ermine and great nobbly jewels. The only enlivening encounters I had were with Pilot-Officer Norman Bentwich, very self-conscious in his uniform and twittering to be sent to the Middle East. He’s at Horseferry Road at the moment and most of his work is done in the still watches of the night. The other encounter was with Colonel the Lord Nathan of Churt who Bore Down Upon me, accompanied by his Consort Billowing above her furs – and said: ‘Miss Alexander, I believe? Are you a Principal at the Air Ministry?’ When I told him I was not, he said with enormous relief: ‘I thought not – Sigmund Gestetner said you were and when I contradicted him, he assured me that you had an arm-chair and a room to yourself.’ I said that this was perfectly true but that it was just accident and that Furniture did not always Proclaim the Post.

  Friday 13 February Darling, Joan rang me up yesterday evening, while I was in Mr Crotch’s room. ‘What did Lear say about Cordelia’s voice?’ she said, without preamble. I answered with Admirable Promptitude, though I sez it as shouldn’t: ‘Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman …’1 to which Joan replied ‘Damn, I’ve lost a glass of beer …’ and rang off.

  I think I must have arrived at work rather early this morning, dear, because the 68 ’bus was crowded with a Galaxy of chars – (I haven’t seen them for weeks – They are a ragged, greasy-locked crew – but bursting with strident good-humour and bonhomie).

  Mrs Wright is ill, so we have wonderful subtly flavoured meals, stirred by my mother’s magic spoon. The Old Man is Gloomier and Drearier than ever.

  When he opened the door a Suspicious crack for me yesterday evening, I asked him if the bath-water was hot. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Dunno – Dunno – Dunno. Can’t have two baths a day now – can’t get the coke – can’t get the coke – can’t get the coke,’ and he shook his head malevolently. Darling, I wish he was more like the Porter in Macbeth or the Grave-digger in Hamlet. As it is, he has all the appearance, the Ripeness and Nobbliness of Shakespeare’s Minions – but actually he’s more like one of his ill-natured Bastards in character. My favourite game is Hiding in the Corner when Old Wright opens the Front Door – so that he can’t see who he’s letting in – He gets simply furious.

  Sunday 15 February Darling, everywhere I go, people congratulate me on having Attained you – and I swell to bursting-point with Pride in you – and Come Over All Look-What-I’ve-Got. I’m referring to Mrs Todd, Sigmund’s two sisters & his niece and Miss Kay & Sister at the Dragon School.

  Pause, in which Churchill announced, after a lot of devilish fine oratory which convinced no-one, the fall of Singapore. Oh! God.

  Darling, I love you so much, I’m breathless and pale when I think of it (so I’m nearly always breathless and pale, my dear love). When will you knock on my door at the Air Ministry and say, ‘Hello’ very quietly and matily – and then kiss me with your mouth still cold from the wind, and make me feel, even in such times as these that to be young is Very Heaven? (Fancy Old Wordsworth saying that! It’s the only thing in all his Outpourings that explains Annette.)

  Wednesday 18 February Dudley Danby is expected to pedal along for dinner tomorrow evening. I think my mother feels that she ought to make some effort for Joan. When she told us that he was coming to dinner – she and Joan both giggled weakly and Joan thanked her Elaborately and Solemnly for all she was doing to Further her Interests.

  Darling, it is both true and untrue that no man is an island entire of itself … I feel that very strongly when I think about Joan, who has resolutely cut herself off from the mainland. She thinks she is self-sufficient and self-governing – but actually I think she’s going to find it more and more difficult to carry on anything more than a tourist trade with the rest of the world. Autonomy is all very well for a hermit – but Joan is not prepared to be a hermit, and in her diplomatic relations with people on the mainland she is sweeping and ruthless – Oh! darling, I’m very unhappy about her – and when I say any of this to her she gets so angry that there’s nothing left for me to do but be silent.

  Monday 2 March Darling, I hope you didn’t have too hellish a journey. I felt ashamed as I lay in bed rubbing my cheek against a cool pink linen pillow slip, and curling my toes into the little warm, smooth hollow made by my hot-water bottle – and thought of you, cramped and jolting in a cold train, with nothing to comfort you but your book on codes and your German Grammar.

  Mr Crotch has come back from Harrogate, smarting with indignation because all he’s had from his wife since Tuesday is a post-card giving him her address. You’ll never have cause for complaint in that respect, will you, my dear love?

  Thank you for a week of your love and generosity and infinite gentleness and kindliness, my very dear love.

  Tuesday 3 March Darling, I had an enchantingly meaty airgraph from Aubrey yesterday. He says he is universally cherished by my relatives as ‘the man who knows Eileen’s fiancé’, and that Pa is a ‘shameless enthusiast of Gershon’s qualities in governmental and legal circles’. He adds that he’s met dozens of my ‘somewhat gallicised’ school friends who all remember me in terms of my ‘distaste for physical exercise’. He demands to be Told All. Moreover, darling, he seems to have Fallen a Victim to Hollow Promises and is still a Lieutenant.

  This evening, darling, Clad in my Best Attire, I shall make my way to the Deserted House of a Bachelor of Uncertain Reputation and Hold Converse with him on Matters of State. Reputation, they say, is a Bubble – but I feel sure that mine is safe with Leslie (– but not so sure whether this fact is a compliment or an Indictment, darling!).

  Wednesday 4 March I was with Leslie for an hour and a h
alf yesterday evening, darling. He remembered you very well – ‘A double first in Classics and Psychology’. He asked me when we were going to get married – When I said I didn’t know he gave me a penetrating look and said: ‘Why?’ I told him you were going abroad and he shook his head sadly.

  Then we talked of the war. He said he believed we were losing it – The nation was apathetic and the Government short-sighted and still nursing the dead concept of the White Man’s Burden. ‘You know, Eileen,’ he said rather diffidently, ‘I believe in ideals – is that naive of me? I begin to think that it is. If the British Empire is a free association of free peoples then it is a magnificent organization. If it is conceived as a conglomeration of Dagos ground beneath the heel of a Superior White Race – then it’s evil.’ We talked of India and the Far East and shuddered at the way in which realms and islands seemed to be as plates (a small Spanish coin) dropped from a hole in our pocket. (I didn’t think of the quotation – or rather misquotation at the time, darling – I wish I had!) We talked of the Jews – Good Jews and Bad, Flashy, Black-market Jews – We agreed that part-assimilation was the only solution to our problem. We discussed the place of the Jews in English cultural, social & economic life. We were interrupted by the arrival of a bobbing, heel-clicking refugee professor who had come to read German to Leslie for an hour – (Leslie loves being read to). He (Leslie) looked tired and ill – His hair is very grey and he had two buttons of his waistcoat undone. He was wearing soft knitted house-slippers and he sat listlessly in his chair – but his mind was as keen and sharp as a razor. It’s a tragedy, darling, that such a man should be shouldered out of Office and disregarded. He liked talking to me, darling, and asked me to go and see him again. He promised to dine with us as soon as we could guarantee a moon and a taxi! I hope we shall be able to provide both before you leave. I do so much want you to meet him again.

  Friday 6 March Mr Crotch is in a very matey mood today – He keeps coming in and interrupting me with idle chatter. Yesterday he said pathetically: ‘My wife’s idea of marriage is to curl up against me in bed like an affectionate kitten – and go to sleep – and I used to be such a good seducer too.’ I’ve come to the conclusion, darling, that men are all children.

  Sunday 8 March Ismay entertained me with an account of all the more social aspects of her confinement. I looked at Isobel who has a thick crop of reddish hair and looks, poor child, exactly like Ismay’s mother. Heredity is a fearsome thing, darling. The birth of her child was nearly 3 weeks overdue. If you ask me, darling, it’s a clear case of Inhibition – she just couldn’t bring herself to do anything as Basic as Giving Birth – It was only Force Majeur and the threat of a Caesarian operation which forced her to it in the end – combined, of course, with a strong sense of Social Duty.

  I wish the Levy’s didn’t live in Love Lane, dear. The Local Policeman gave me such an Ineffably Coy look when I asked him to direct me thither! I felt it was a bit ’ard with you so many miles away.

  Darling, Mr Crotch informed me yesterday that he intended to Teach his Wife a Lesson by committing Adultery. As a matter of fact I think he’s begun already – He’s going about looking very cock-a-hoop – And he’s reading Jurgen2 again. Jurgen is very adulterously minded & Mr Crotch is always saying that he’s his counterpart in literature. That’s what comes of turning over and going to sleep when you’re in bed with your husband, darling – but I don’t think I shall need the Moral Lesson implied in Mr Crotch’s Confidences, do you, darling?

  Friday 13 March Darling, my ring gives me infinite and increasing pleasure. Everybody thinks it is beautiful, even my mother, who finds it hard to forgive it for not being an emerald. When I arrived home with it last night she shook her head sadly and said: ‘Not even a drop of champagne – I hadn’t any in the house.’ I assured her, darling, that she could open a frothing magnum for us, if she liked, just before you left. This comforted her. Darling, for our private use, let us fix the date of our engagement at September 5th, 1941 – The rest are but the trappings and the suits of betrothal. Do you agree?

  Joan was telling Sheila in the hearing of Mrs Turnell yesterday that I had been quite hysterical the night before at the thought of my new work – and Mrs Turnell said: ‘Hysterical? She’s probably oversexed.’ Joan solemnly assured me, in her bath, that she thought Mrs T Had Something There. Her thesis was that anyone who attached such importance to physical love must be oversexed!!! Morbid Monogamy was just as much a form of being oversexed as Morbid Promiscuity. If you were normally sexed and were not detained by religious or moral scruples then, although you might be fastidious, it didn’t much matter to you whether you were a virgin or not. As I knew, darling, that Joan was partly paying me out for the things I said to her on that Sunday morning when she was so aggrieved, and partly feeling resentful because my unrestrained absorption in you was very much like her disastrous relationship with Ian, I took it very coolly and matily – and my good nature was rewarded, darling, because, this morning, she withdrew it all. Poor Joan – Ian’s defection has simply destroyed her balance – I’ve never known anything so awful.

  Thursday 17 March Darling, I had a very interesting lunch with Sylvia. We discussed The World Jewish Review and travelled thence to your qualms and uncertainty about Jewish Orthodoxy. She said that she understood your attitude very well, and that she had been through a similar stage herself. She believes that every critically minded person is bound to question the validity of Jewish Ritual but that the shedding of old habits of mind is bound to be rather a painful process. She agrees with me, darling, that Jewishness, in its best sense, is a State of Mind – indefinable but unmistakable – and that it has nothing to do with religion or race. We decided that the only way to develop our peculiar intellectual potentialities was to become socially assimilated – to be strictly selective and highly critical in our religious practices and, above all, not to segregate ourselves arrogantly from the non-Jewish world.

  Wednesday 18 March Darling, I was almost roused to irritation by a remark of Mr Crotch’s yesterday. He is fond of referring scathingly to my lack of sexual charm – Normally I’m quite pleased by it because, darling, it would make me feel ill to be attractive to him – I don’t want to be attractive to anyone but you actively although I should like our friends to think that I was a nice sort of solace for you to have – but I should be physically sick if Mr Crotch found me attractive because he’s the kind of man who takes an Inventory of a woman’s body and then tots up the totals. However, yesterday I was almost angry – I said: ‘I don’t expect Mr Shearing will want to have me,’ and he said, ‘Well, what man would? A full-blooded man anyway.’ I just raised my eyebrows & walked out of his room. I like Mr Crotch in his official capacity, darling, and I respect him for his undoubted ability and drive – and his confidences quite entertain me – but I loathe his attitude to women, although I know it’s the result of a painful psychological tangle arising out of his relations with his wife. I have been able to laugh at his remarks up till now – but, oh! darling, after you’ve gone, I know I shall take everything he says as a personal affront – I do hope I’m transferred before then.

  Joan & I are going this evening to see Wuthering Heights. I don’t expect we’ll like it – but I want to see what Merle Oberon & Laurence Olivier make of it. At least they have beautiful voices.

  Thursday 19 March Wuthering Heights was bad – because the relationship between Catherine and Edgar Linton was sentimentalized – and the long break in the relationship between Catherine & Heathcliff (while he was in America and she was rejoicing in her new life – forsooth!) invalidated its power. Joan said: ‘It would have been alright if the producer had read the book …’ and there’s no doubt, darling, that she spoke the Last Word on the film.

  Monday 23 March I had quite a long session with Mr Proper this morning, darling. He thanked me for the ‘valuable work’ I’d done in S2 and hoped I would be happy in S9. Talking of happiness, darling, I was able yesterday, for the firs
t time since I’ve known you were going abroad, to shake off a crushing load of depression and simply delight in being with you without any thought of tomorrow – or the next day.

  Tuesday 24 March Darling, I’m wore aht. I’d forgotten what it was like to do an uninterrupted day’s work. I spent the day drawing up an agenda for a meeting on voluntary canteens on RAF stations.

  Group Captains, Wing Commanders & Squadron Leaders flicker across the screen of my consciousness incessantly, darling. I sit at a very small table opposite Mr Murray and when people come in with queries I Watch and Listen. Mr Murray signals messages across to me with his eyes during the conversation. He has very expressive sherry-coloured eyes, and sometimes they say: ‘This man is a fool – pay no attention to him’ – at other times: ‘I should listen to this, you’ll get a lot of fun out of this Bird,’ or: ‘This man knows his subject – It might almost be worth while taking notes.’ After a few of these ocular messages, darling, I asked him if he’d said what I thought he had. He was very much amused & said that was exactly what he had thought of our last 3 callers.

  Although I’m not consciously nervous of Mr Murray, darling. I am actually strung up to a very high pitch at the moment, what with one thing and another – and I’m terrified of producing bad work & getting pushed back into Establishments.