Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  Friday 26 June Darling, Joan is going to Dorset with her mother tomorrow for a week’s leave. Mrs Aubertin is spending the night with us. Mrs Aubertin is a little stunned over Joan, darling, but She’s Taking it Very Well, All considered. Darling, I was so ashamed of myself this evening. My mother said that it was about time I gave up 2 baths a day and I said I was dirty twice a day and we wrangled a bit and I asked Mrs Aubertin what she thought – and she said: ‘Well, Eileen, I never have a proper bath except when I go away from home because we only have a tin bath.’ Oh! Darling, I’m going to give up my morning bath from Monday. Slap me for a pampered little wretch, my love. Mrs Aubertin is a Delight. She’s just as Willy Nilly as Joan if not more so & she sees Joan without a Single Scale before her Eyes, without a bit of Rosiness about her spectacles, but she’s none the less fond of her for that. That’s how we’ll be with our daughters, darling, shan’t we?

  Monday 29 June Darling, I saw in this morning’s Times that Eddie Ades had been killed in action. I never knew him, except by sight, but I know that you and Aubrey liked him enormously & that you must be sorry. I’m sorry too, my darling. We shall be a depleted generation – those of us who survive this war.

  Darling, I met Joyce for lunch. She has Taken to Riding Everywhere on her Bicycle. This is a Sinister Sign I think and Bespeaks the Influence of Bernard, which appears to be reasserting itself – and with Gordon thousands of miles away – well! well!

  Thursday 2 July Darling, when you say in your telegram: ‘All Well and Happy’ do you refer to your little Band of Brothers-in-Arms or to Uncle Tom Cobley and all, by which disrespectful designation I refer to the Mosseris and their many Lateral Shoots? By the way, darling, if you mean my relatives I think ‘happy’ is a peculiarly unhappy choice of words, because anything less communally Joyous than the Mosseris there never was, don’t you think? In fact, darling, Pa and I have often described them to one another as a Covey of Black Crows, always at their best in the neighbourhood of a Corpse – but perhaps we were being unkind – anyway there were so many more of them in those days, my love.

  Saturday 4 July Darling, such goings-on! I was walking peaceably down Wardour St after an excellent lunch with Aunt Teddy and Jean at an uncharted Kosher Restaurant – not I regret to say, sanctified by the Spit of the Illustrious Beth Din – when I suddenly got mixed up in a Brawl. Outside Chez Victor there was a waiter – and a woman. The waiter was small, black, Italian, wiry-haired and wiry limbed and the woman was Desiccated and Drab and in the Government office-cleaner tradition. She had an enormous pot of beer in her hand. It was obvious that the Woman did not love the Waiter nor the Waiter the Woman: ‘Treat me like a Prostitute,’ she said heatedly, ‘Me with 7 generations of respectable working people be’ind me.’ She then went on, with fascinating fluency of speech on the circumstances of his birth, his sexual oddities and other intimate details of his life. He gave as good as he got if not better, darling. I don’t know which epithet it was which finally Shattered her Self-Control – I only know that, when it left his lips, he she and I were in a straight line. She Swung her Pot of Beer – he Ducked and lo! I was shaking myself like a damp puppy with my hair beer-dewed, my jacket and dress froth-and-brown speckled, and my poise seriously shaken. I drew myself up to my Full Height, wiped a trickle from my cheek which felt like a Beery tear, begged the pardon of the assembled crowd (I don’t know what for, darling, force of habit, I suppose) and Passed on with Dignity. Now that it has dried off me leaving a faint aroma but no stains to speak of, I am able to look back upon it as an interesting experience, my love. Never say again that I Don’t See Life, darling. It would no longer be true or just. Anyway, now I know what Socrates felt like when Xanthippe emptied a Malcolm all over him which is surely Something. I forgot to say, darling, that at one point in the altercation, she said, spitting with Rage: ‘Chez Victor! Same name as that swine over there …’ pointing to Vic Oliver’s3 portrait over the Hippodrome Opposite – ‘and’ she added as an afterthought, ‘his Fat Father-in-Law’, by which I take it that she meant our Revered Prime Minister!

  Joan Pearce came to dinner this evening, darling. Her conversation was Liberally Peppered with ‘Dam’ fine’s’ and ‘Old Bitch’s’ and she kept slapping her not inconsiderable thigh with Gusto and saying: ‘Army Life Suits Me’, but she’s a good soul really, darling, beneath all those Layers of Khaki.

  Monday 6 July Darling, I’ve had rather a shock. I had lunch with Susan Wyatt today and about half way through the second course she said that she & Woodrow were separated & that she was living with someone else. I said I was sorry, darling, but it sounded fantastically flat and inept and then she told me that it was the complete absence of rest in their relationship that had worn them both down. I can’t understand how anyone can marry a person with whom they are not at rest, can you, darling? Darling, I hate separations & Divorces – I wish they never happened. Let’s not have any in our family, my very dear love. I feel shaken and unhappy – as I felt about Joan at the time of the Ian debacle. I wish so many of my friends weren’t so unstable emotionally. Susan looked so pale and thin and unhappy.

  Tuesday 7 July Darling, the Uneven tenor of Joan’s Emotional Way is more uneven than ever. M. le M has come back from America with a first-class duration-of-the-war job in his pocket for her. Now she’s torn between the prospect of staying in England and marrying Robert and of going to the States and Carving Out a Career. I’m sorry for her, darling, except if it were my case there would be no dilemma. I wouldn’t for instance take the English Chair at Jerusalem University if it were offered to me on a gold, emerald-studded salver unless you were coming with me. I would not accept a Government portfolio if it meant that I shouldn’t have enough time to write you a long letter every day, my dear love. It may sound easy to give away the moon when you haven’t got it, darling, but in my case it happens to be true. With Joan it is not now ‘when I marry Robert …’ but ‘If I marry Robert …’

  Wednesday 8 July Darling, I had a letter this morning from Basil. He has had his Army calling-up papers. He’s going to make one more plea for the RAF and if that fails, he’s not going to do anything more about it. I’ve made exhaustive enquiries here and I’ve satisfied myself that the vacancy position in the RAF Medical Branch is such that there’s a chance in a million that his application will meet with any success. There’s a staggering waiting list, darling. Basil is coming to stay with us on the 19th so, if Mrs Turner can have me I shall go to Cambridge this Saturday afternoon and take Monday and Tuesday as annual leave so that I shall have 3 full days at Girton Corner.

  Darling, I think I’ve managed to persuade Joan that she’ll be running away from a real chance of happiness by going to Washington. The root of the whole trouble, my dear love, is that she’s so terrified of becoming really involved again in an emotional relationship and thus laying herself open once more to the possibility of getting hurt, that she has an instinct to slide out while there’s still time. Poor Joan – Ian has more to answer for than he will ever realize.

  Friday 10 July Darling, Jean brought her friend ‘Square’ to dinner tonight and I showed him my vinaigrettes. He’s really a most entertaining man – and he talks about food as others talk about Great Music or Great Poetry – and because I have a touch of the gastromanic in myself, my darling, I was rather pleased with him – at least I should have been on any other evening but tonight I have such an appalling sense of fear and loss that nothing really pleases me. I am Sick and Sullen, my darling. I have felt today for the first time since you left that I simply can’t go on without you. Of course, I shall go on, darling. I can go on because I know that this is only a mood which will pass – leaving me once more with a sense of your unalterable nearness, because you see, my very dear love, you’re always near me – At the back of the 68 ’bus – in the narrow, tortuous streets of Soho, in the Entrance hall of Bush House, in my room, even in my bed, my darling – and tomorrow I’m going to be very near to you indeed – at Girton Corner whe
re you were so infinitely kind, patient and gentle with me. Darling, I’m crying – I haven’t cried very much since you left because I’ve never really apprehended before that you’d gone for a terrifyingly indefinite time. Darling, when you come back I shall be so greedy for your smile and your comfort and your companionship and humour and your kisses and the touch of your hands that I’ll never be able to let you out of my sight.

  Monday 13 July I’ve just remembered rather a nice remark of Square’s, darling, which I was Too Mournful to appreciate at the time. He was telling us how a friend of his had bought an allotment in Battersea Park at the beginning of the war and had consulted him as to which would be the best patch of ground to choose. Square, who doesn’t really know much about these things, said he thought the cricket pitch would be a good place as that must have been carefully nourished with phosphates & so on for the past 50 years. The friend took his advice and, said Square, ‘You should see his allotment now – everything shoots up like a lift.’ He also told us about ‘Les Pyramides’ at Vienne, where you used to be able to get the best food in France, darling. He says that if you ask for a menu or say you’d like this or that to eat there you ‘either get shot out or polited out’ but if you just sit and look Contemplative, my love, they lay before you the finest meal you’ve ever dreamed of. Square is very 18th century, darling. I rather hope Jean marries him. She’s much more natural and nice when she’s with him. All her effrontery and affectations seem to peel off and she becomes a really likeable person.

  Saturday 18 July I really wanted to sleep when I got in this afternoon, but Joan wanted to talk. She’s decided to live with Mrs Mair for the month of August because she finds it hard to think of coming up against Pa until she has sorted out her ideas about Robert. Pa is going to say some very bitter things about Joan, darling, and it’s going to hurt me a lot. I’m frightened and I wish you were here. Joan is frightened of Pa as I am, my dear love, because he can be so very cruel from the highest possible motives. His rigid, unreasoning, unbending Puritanism is terrifying – no less terrifying than the intellectual demands he makes, which used to make me ill with anxiety at Cambridge. He’s a very strange mixture, my darling, of real kindliness & incredible hardness. Oh! Darling I do so wish you were here and that we were married and had our own home. I wish it so much that it’s a real ache. You see, darling, Joan’s standards are not my standards – but I’m not prepared to say that mine are right & hers wrong. I am only prepared to say that mine are right for me. As a matter of fact, darling, the only girl of our generation whose standards are almost exactly the same as mine is Sylvia.

  Sunday 19 July Darling, only one Profound Thought was born of a night of sleeplessness, snuffling and brooding, & that was that Pa was a cross between Mephistopheles and Father Christmas – a disconcerting combination, my dear love.

  Darling, I’ve decided that I’m a Girl of Simple Needs. The only things I must have are you – and friends to whom I can write and talk at length about my other friends – and access to books – and constant Hot Water and Paper Handkerchiefs or High Grade Cotton Wool for Duncan. The rest are luxuries which I can dispense with if I must.

  I had a long discussion with Joan about her Future. Her latest plan is to stay with us and try and persuade Pa that Robert is a Good Thing. I’ve no doubt however that she will change her mind a dozen times before Pa arrives in England. Robert came to tea this afternoon. I’m rather frightened of his attitude to Joan, darling. I don’t think he understands her at all – which, of course, isn’t surprising considering he’s only known her for 6 weeks. Think how little you and I knew of one another after six weeks of fairly continuous meeting – and, moreover, we were not blinded by any violent physical attraction.

  Monday 20 July Darling, Joan is thinking of getting married on September 5th which is the anniversary of the day on which you asked me to marry you. I hope they decide finally on that date, my dear love – I’d like something specially nice to happen then. (What I should like best would be for you to come home on that day, my darling. Lay it to thy heart …)

  Wednesday 22 July Darling, I’m in some sorrow because under the accommodation reshuffle in Bush House, I shall no longer be with Mr Murray, but in with the two TAOs and the other TAAs. Oh! woe is me – though actually I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to have been with him for so long.

  Thursday 23 July Darling, I was talking to Basil until very late last night. He came up to see the snap I took of you punting on the river in which you’re laughing very characteristically with your mouth wide open. Do you remember, darling? He has a sort of naif curiosity about love in general and our love in particular – and because he’s so sincerely fond of you, darling, I told him a very great deal about my love for you since its inception – more than I really wanted to – certainly more than I ever told anyone else – except you, of course, my darling. You see it’s quite clear that he has been brought up in the Tradition which believes, like Shaw that ‘Most young men greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another’. The whole discussion arose out of my mother telling him laughingly that I had always said I would never love or marry anyone. He thought this was a Very Queer attitude and I tried to explain to him something of the terrible emotional risks involved in love. I said that I realized now that the risks were worth taking – that it was worth staking everything on a gamble – even if it ended in disaster as it did for Joan – but that, before I realized the superabundant richness of the harvest that could be reaped from love, I could only see and fear its dangers. He said that when I talked about love he supposed I must mean something quite different from the affection which grew out of sharing a home and children – like the love of your parents for instance – I assured him that I did – I said that I was as completely bound to you now as though we were married and that if you had wished it before you went away, I would have lived with you as your wife – although, I added, I was in one way (and only in one way, darling (though I didn’t go into this with Basil) and you could have overcome that completely if you’d wanted to – and still can at any time if circumstances should make you think it advisable for our well-being or happiness) & perhaps a rather selfish way, glad that you had not, because of my parents, who felt very strongly about these things. He nodded, darling, and I think he began to see what I meant by love – and then he went up to bed. I hope you don’t mind my having talked to him like this, darling, but I wanted him to know how completely and unreservedly I love you, how you are my life and my spirit and the stimulus of my intellect.

  Saturday 25 July Darling, working for Mr Murray has done me all the good in the world. He is a man who, when he sees something wrong, doesn’t Shake his Head in Sorrow – and leave it at that – He goes to see somebody about it – or writes to them about it – and he doesn’t let it rest until he sees some sort of result.

  Basil asked me the same question about inter-marriage as your father had asked, and I said that I valued love more highly than any religious creed – at which he said: ‘Ah! then you do set a high value on some worldly things.’ I couldn’t explain to him, darling, that to be at rest in your arms takes me nearer to timelessness, to eternity and to the harmony of the spheres, if you will, than anything else in the world – nearer to God, in fact, or first causes or what you will. It is because your kisses can take me beyond time, my darling, that I am so repelled by promiscuous mollocking which means – nothing. It is because I was instinctively conscious of what love could mean that I was so censorious of promiscuity in the past – before I knew you.

  Now Basil has gone to spend the afternoon with David & Sylvia & Jennifer & my mother and I are going to see Mrs Miniver.

  Darling Mrs Miniver was the American Idea of how England Goes To It. Sentimental stuff but quite effective in its way. A film full of Fine Sentiment, darling, and a really lovely performance by Greer Garson. (I did tell you didn’t I, my love, that she was at London University with Mr Crotch & that she got a First in Engli
sh?)

  Darling, I wish I could shake off this pall of depression. I am suspended between unborn tomorrow & dead yesterday, with nothing but uncertainty ahead. That makes me feel very old and tired, my darling. I am a dead leaf lying on the ground on a still day – or an old chimney cowl revolving aimlessly in the wind. Oh! darling.

  Monday 27 July Victor is in London on leave, darling. I had a long telephone conversation with him this evening. He’s ship’s librarian & schoolmaster and he gets 4d a day extra for each job! He’s an NCO now, my love & a commission is within his grasp only he’s hesitating about taking it, because he’s afraid that it will turn him back into what he once was, a Rich Young Man in the Ruling Classes. I’m having lunch with him on Wednesday, my love, and I’ll try to talk him round – because, darling, Victor will never be just a rich young man of the ruling classes again – he needn’t be afraid.

  Tuesday 28 July Mr Wright suddenly Came Over All Skittish on us yesterday evening, darling. He marched into the Dining Room with Mrs Wright’s Best Hat on (a black Tyrolean affair with a scarlet feather in it) and said ‘Good Night, All’ He looked like a Bawdy Old Swiss Inn-Keeper – the Comic Lead in ‘White Horse Inn’ or something – Fantastic.

  Basil, unlike you, my love, Communes with Duncan almost hourly. He took Joan to lunch at Quality Inn yesterday and, because she insisted on a 2nd cup of coffee (no extra charge) he felt impelled to have one as well. As a result, he had no sooner deposited Joan in Berkeley Sq. House, when he found himself yearning for Duncan with an intensity which surprised even himself. He Hurtled down Berkeley St and Across Piccadilly & Dived into Green Park Station like a Homing Pigeon – only to find that the Gentleman’s Duncan had been Bombed long ago. He tore down Piccadilly – He saw what he took to be dozens of Gentleman’s, but they all turned out to be Mirages and Sickly Images of the Brain. By this time, he says Rather Indelicately, policeman’s Helmets were beginning to take on an Alarming & Rather Freudian Significance for him – and he gravitated towards the nearest one by a kind of unformulated instinct. Finding himself face to face with a sturdy copper he gasped: ‘Tell me where I can find a Gentleman’s or I shall become a Public Nuisance.’ The Bobby, true to his Traditions, was immediately able to assist, but it was Touch and Go, darling, touch and go.