An Autobiography

by Agatha Christie

  The Smiths were extremely good to me. They lived not far away, and I was always welcome to come there after I had left the Hospital, and talk to Sidney for an hour. He would lend me books that he thought it would interest me to read, and would sit there, rather like a Grecian philosopher of old, while I sat at his feet, feeling like a humble disciple.

  He enjoyed my detective stories, though his criticisms of them were unlike anybody else’s. About something that I didn’t think good he would often say, ‘That’s the best point in that book of yours.’ Anything that I was pleased with he would say, ‘No, it’s not up to your best–you were below standard there.’

  One day Stephen Glanville attacked me. ‘I’ve got a project I’ve thought out for you.’

  ‘Oh, what’s that?’

  ‘I want you to write a detective story about ancient Egypt.’ ‘About ancient Egypt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I couldn’t’

  ‘Oh yes, you could. There is no difficulty at all. There is no reason why a detective story shouldn’t be just as easy to place in ancient Egypt as in 1943 in England.’

  I saw what he meant. People are the same in whatever century they live, or where.

  ‘And it would be so interesting,’ he said. ‘One ought to have a detective story written so that someone who enjoys reading detective stories and reading about those times can combine his pleasures.’

  Again I said I couldn’t do anything of that kind. I didn’t know enough. But Stephen was an extraordinarily persuasive man, and by the end of the evening he had almost convinced me that I could.

  ‘You’ve read a lot of Egyptology,’ he said. ‘You are not only interested in Mesopotamia.’

  It was true that one of the books I had been fondest of in the past, was Breasted’s The Dawn of Conscience, and that I had read a good deal of Egyptian history when I had written my play about Akhnaton.

  ‘All you want to do is fix on a period, or an incident, some definite setting,’ said Stephen.

  I had a terrible feeling that the die was cast.

  ‘But you would have to give me some ideas,’ I said weakly, ‘as to what time or place.’

  ‘Well,’ said Stephen, ‘there is an incident or two here that might do–’ He pointed out one or two things in one of the books he took from his shelves. Then he gave me half a dozen or so more books, drove me and the books home to Lawn Road Flats, and said: ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. You can have a nice two days reading through these and see what strikes your imagination.’

  In the end I had marked down three possibly interesting points–none of them particularly well-known incidents, or about well-known figures, because I think that is what so often makes novels set in historic periods seem so phoney. After all, one doesn’t really know anything of what King Pepi or Queen Hatshepsut was like, and to pretend you do is a kind of arrogance. But you can place a character of your own creation in those times, and as long as you know enough of the local colour and the general feeling of the period it would be all right. One of my choices was a fourth dynasty incident, another very much later–in the time, I think, of one of the later Rameses–and the third one, the one which I finally decided upon, was drawn from recently published letters from a Ka priest in the IIth Dynasty.

  These letters painted to perfection the picture of a living family: the father, fussy, opinionated, annoyed with his sons who did not do what he said; the sons, one obedient but obviously not bright, and the other, sharp-tempered, showy, and extravagant. The letters the father wrote to his two sons were about how he must take care of a certain middle-aged woman, obviously one of those poor relations who all through the ages live with families, to whom the heads of families are always kindly, whereas the children usually grow up disliking them because they are often sycophants and makers of mischief.

  The old man laid down rules about how they were to do so-and-so with the oil, and so-and-so with the barley. They were not to let this person or that person cheat them over the quality of certain foods. The whole family grew clearer and clearer in my mind. I added a daughter, and some details from one or two other texts–the arrival of a new wife, by whom the father was besotted. I also threw in a spoilt small boy and a greedy but shrewd grandmother.

  Excited, I started work. I had no book on hand at the moment. Ten Little Niggers had been successfully running at the St. James’ Theatre until that theatre was bombed; it then transferred to the Cambridge for some further months. I was just playing about with a new idea for a book, so this was just the moment to get started on an Egyptian detective story.

  There is no doubt that I was bullied into it by Stephen. There was no doubt, either, that if Stephen was determined that I should write a detective story set in ancient Egypt, I should have to do so. He was that kind of man.

  As I pointed out to him in the ensuing weeks and months, he must have become extremely sorry that he had urged me to do anything of the sort. I was continually ringing him up and demanding information which, as he said, only took me three minutes to ask for, but which he usually had to look through eight different books to find. ‘Stephen, what did they eat for meals? How did they have their meat cooked? Were there any special things for special feasts? Did the men and women eat together? What sort of rooms did they sleep in?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Stephen would groan, and then he would have to look up things, pointing out to me that one has to deduce a great deal from little evidence. There were pictures of reed birds on spits being served, pictures of loaves, of bunches of grapes being picked–and so on. Anyway, I got enough to make my daily life of the period sound all right, and then I came back with a few more queries.

  ‘Did they eat at the table, or on the floor? Did the women occupy a separate part of the house? Did they keep linen in chests or in cupboards? What sort of houses did they have?’

  Houses were far more difficult to find out about than temples or palaces, owing to the fact that the temples and palaces were still there, being built of stone, whereas houses had been of more perishable material.

  Stephen argued with me a great deal on one point of my denouement, and I am sorry to say that I gave in to him in the end. I was always annoyed with myself for having done so. He had a kind of hypnotic influence about that sort of thing; He was so positive himself that he was right that you couldn’t help having doubts yourself. Up to then, on the whole, though I have given in to people on every subject under the sun, I have never given in to anyone over what I write.

  If I think I have got a certain thing right in a book–the way it should be–I’m not easily moved from it. In this case, against my better judgment, I did give in. It was a moot point, but I still think now, when I re-read the book, that I would like to re-write the end of it–which shows that you should stick to your guns in the first place, or you will be dissatisfied with yourself. But I was a little hampered by the gratitude I felt to Stephen for all the trouble he had taken, and the fact that it had been his idea to start with. Anyway, Death Comes as the End was duly written.

  Shortly after that, I wrote the one book that has satisfied me completely. It was a new Mary Westmacott, the book that I had always wanted to write, that had been clear in my mind. It was the picture of a woman with a complete image of herself, of what she was, but about which she was completely mistaken. Through her own actions, her own feelings and thoughts, this would be revealed to the reader. She would be, as it were, continually meeting herself, not recognising herself, but becoming increasingly uneasy. What brought about this revelation would be the fact that for the first time in her life she was alone–completely alone–for four or five days.

  I had the background now, which I had not had in my mind before. It would be one of those resthouses on journeys through Mesopotamia, where you are immobilised, you cannot travel on, there is no one there but natives who hardly speak English–who bring you meals and nod their heads and agree to what you say. There is nowhere to go, no one to see, and you are stuck there till you can
go on. So you sit and think about yourself, having read the only two books you have with you. You think about yourself. And my starting point–I had always known what that would be–was when she was leaving Victoria, going out to see one of her daughters who was married abroad, looking back as the train moved out of the station, at her husband’s back retreating up the platform, and the sudden pang it gave her as he went striding along, striding along just like a man who was terrifically relieved, who was released from bondage, who was going to have a holiday. It was so surprising that she could hardly believe her eyes. Of course she was mistaken, of course Rodney was going to miss her terribly, and yet–that little seed–it would stay in her mind worrying her; and then, she was all alone and began thinking, the pattern of her life would unroll little by little. It was going to be technically difficult to do, the way I wanted it; lightly, colloquially, but with a growing feeling of tension, of uneasiness, the sort of feeling one has–everyone has, sometime, I think–of who am I? What am I like really? What do all the people I love think of me? Do they think of me as I think they do?

  The whole world looks different; you begin to see it in different terms. You keep reassuring yourself, but the suspicion, the anxiety comes back.

  I wrote that book in three days flat. On the third day, a Monday, I sent an excuse to the Hospital, because I did not dare leave my book at that point–I had to go on until I had finished it. It was not a long book–a mere fifty thousand words–but it had been with me a long time.

  It is an odd feeling to have a book growing inside you, for perhaps six or seven years knowing that one day you will write it, knowing that it is building up, all the time, to what it already is. Yes, it is there already–it just has to come more clearly out of the mist. All the people are there, ready, waiting in the wings, ready to come on to the stage when their cues are called–and then, suddenly, one gets a clear and sudden command: Now!

  Now is when you are ready. Now, you know all about it. Oh, the blessing that for once one is able to do it then and there, that now is really now.

  I was so frightened of interruptions, of anything breaking the flow of continuity, that after I had written the first chapter in a white heat, I proceeded to write the last chapter, because I knew so clearly where I was going that I felt I must get it down on paper. Otherwise I did not have to interrupt anything–I went straight through.

  I don’t think I have ever been so tired. When I finished, when I had seen that the chapter I had written earlier needed not a word changed, I fell on my bed, and as far as I remember slept more or less for twenty-four hours straight through. Then I got up and had an enormous dinner, and the following day I was able to go to the Hospital again.

  I looked so peculiar that everyone was upset about me there. ‘You must have been really ill,’ they said, ‘you have got the most enormous circles under your eyes.’ It was only fatigue and exhaustion, but to have that fatigue and exhaustion was worth-while when for once writing had been no difficulty–no difficulty at all, that is, beyond the physical effort. Anyway, it was a very rewarding experience to have had.

  I called the book Absent in the Spring, from that sonnet of Shakespeare’s which begins with those words: ‘From you have I been absent in the spring.’ I don’t know myself, of course, what it is really like. It may be stupid, badly written, no good at all. But it was written with integrity, with sincerity, it was written as I meant to write it, and that is the proudest joy an author can have.

  A few years later I wrote another book of Mary Westmacott–called The Rose and the Yew Tree. It is one I can always read with great pleasure, though it was not an imperative, like Absent in the Spring. But there again, the idea behind the book had been with me a long time–in fact since about 1929. Just a sketchy picture, that I knew would come to life one day.

  One wonders where these things come from–I mean the ones that are a must. Sometimes I think that is the moment one feels nearest to God, because you have been allowed to feel a little of the joy of pure creation. You have been able to make something that is not yourself. You know a kinship with the Almighty, as you might on a seventh day, when you see that what you have made is good.

  I was to make one more variation from my usual literary work. I wrote a book out of nostalgia, because I was separated from Max, could so seldom get news of him, and recalled with such poignant remembrance the days we had spent in Arpachiyah and in Syria. I wanted to re-live our life, to have the pleasure of remembering–and so I wrote Come, Tell Me How You Live, a light-hearted frivolous book; but it does mirror the times we went through, so many little silly things one had forgotten. People have liked that book very much. There was only a small edition of it, because paper was short.

  Sidney Smith, of course, said to me: ‘You can’t publish that, Agatha.’ ‘I’m going to,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You had better not publish that.’

  ‘But I want to.’ Sidney Smith looked at me disapprovingly. It was not the kind of sentiment he would approve of. Doing what you personally wanted did not go with Sidney’s somewhat Calvinist outlook.

  ‘Max might not like it.’

  I considered that doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll mind. He’ll probably like remembering about all the things we did, too. I would never try to write a serious book about archaeology; I know that I’d make far too many silly mistakes. But this is different, this is personal. And I am going to publish it,’ I continued. ‘I want something to hold on to, to remember. You can’t trust your own memory. Things go. So that’s why I want to publish it.’

  ‘Oh! well,’ said Sidney. He still sounded doubtful. However, ‘Oh! well’ was a concession when it came from Sidney.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said his wife Mary. ‘Of course you can publish it. Why not? It is very amusing. And I quite see what you mean about liking to remember and read back over it.’

  The other people who didn’t like it were my publishers. They were suspicious and disapproving, afraid that I was getting completely out of hand. They had hated Mary Westmacott writing anything. They were now prepared to be suspicious of Come, Tell Me How You Live, or anything, in fact, that enticed me away from mystery stories. However, the book was a success, and I think they then regretted that paper was so short. I published it under the name of Agatha Christie Mallowan so that it should not be confused with any of my detective books.

  IV

  There are things one does not want to go over in one’s mind again. Things that you have to accept because they have happened, but you don’t want to think of them again.

  Rosalind rang me up one day and told me that Hubert, who had been in France now for some time, had been reported missing, believed killed.

  That is, I think, the most cruel thing that can happen to any young wife in wartime. The awful suspense. To have your husband killed is bad enough; but it is something you have got to live with, and you know that you have. This fatal holding out of hope is cruel, cruel… And no one can help you.

  I went down to join her, and stayed at Pwllywrach for some time. We hoped–of course one always hopes–but I don’t think Rosalind, in her own heart, ever did quite hope. She had always been one to expect the worst. And I think, too, that there had always been something about Hubert–not exactly melancholy, but that touch or look of someone who is not fated for long life. He was a dear person; good to me always, with, I think, a great vein, not exactly of poetry, but of something of that kind in him. I wish I had had a greater chance to know him better; not just a few short visits and encounters.

  It was not for a good many months that we got any further news. Rosalind, I think, had had the news for a full twenty-four hours before she said anything to me. She had behaved just the same as usual; she was and always has been a person of enormous courage. Finally, hating to do so but knowing it had to be done, she said abruptly: ‘You had better see this, I suppose,’ and she handed me the telegram which reported that he was now definitely classified as killed i
n action.

  The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering. You can do things to aid people’s physical disabilities; but you can do little to help the pain of the heart. I thought, I may have been wrong, that the best thing I could do to help Rosalind was to say as little as possible, to go on as usual. I think that would have been my own feeling. You hope no one will speak to you, or enlarge upon things. I hope that was best for her, but you cannot know for another person. It may be it would have been easier for her if I had been the determined kind of mother who broke her down and insisted on her being more demonstrative. Instinct cannot be infallible. One wants so badly not to hurt the person one loves–not to do the wrong thing for them. One feels one ought to know, but one can never be sure.

  She continued to live at Pwllywrach in the big empty house with Mathew–an enchanting little boy, and always, in my memory, such a happy little boy: he had a great knack for happiness. He still has. I was so glad that Hubert saw his son; that he knew he had a son, though it sometimes seemed more cruel to know that he was not to come back and live in the home he loved, or to bring up the son whom he had wanted so much.

  Sometimes one cannot help a tide of rage coming over one when one thinks of war. In England we had too much war in too short a time.

  The first war seemed unbelievable, amazing; it seemed so unnecessary. But one did hope and believe that the thing had been scotched then, that the wish for war would never arise again in the same German hearts. But it did–we know now, from the documents which are part of history, that Germany was planning for war in the years before the Second War came.