”Paul's house, Wednesday 15th May, 3.30pm
Thank you for writing again. It must have been very painful and sad for you to undertake it and I love you for it.
I see things much more clearly now. At least, that is how it seems to me. Firstly, I do not believe it valid, or, indeed, possible to terminate relationships through an act of will. Your power of will is one of your greatest personal attributes. It carries with it, nevertheless, inherent dangers. Should you decide that our relationship must end, it won't. I will not go away for you, nor vice versa. We have just shared 6 of the most blissful days it is possible for 2 people to experience. How can you expect either of us to banish that?
If there are no immediate resolutions then, I suggest, we should not do anything foolish or melodramatic. If you truly believe that by breaking off communications with me you will find contentment and fulfilment in your present environment, then I will accept that. But the tone of your letter is unhappy. That is surely because you have separated yourself from me, whom you love. I am in exactly the same situation. Everything in your letter came to me as if it were me writing to you. The only difference is that I possess the consolation and problems of a close family.
This may be too simple a resolution of the predicament, but how about it? It's terribly heavily weighted in my favour. But what else can I say, or do? I can't come to California. You can return to England. I love you with all my heart. I miss you beyond belief. If you can offer me the prospect that you will return before too long, that you will be able to sustain your love for me during your absence that you can still believe in us, however difficult it may be to achieve, I will wait for you, with absolute faith. Otherwise, tell me that you have made a firm decision to stay. If that happens, I shall just have to accept and adapt. I will not seek to "replace" you. I need only you.
Return and reconstitute your English life, with me as a certain and undefined element. All of me wants you to return, not least because at the moment I have no reason to believe that - with good judgment - you could not be happier here. But it's an imperfect world, and you are in the position to make the more informed decision.
Joanne is back to normal.
Remember: "The course of true love ne'er did run smooth". Remember our holiday. It really did happen. I was wrong about memories. But then I still do believe in us. I feel that it would be very wrong for us to separate. I'll probably get very depressed later, especially when I re-read your letter. But, at this moment, I am foolishly optimistic that we have been exaggerating the difficulties that we share between us. I love you so much.
”Home, Thursday 16th May: 9.00am
I was wrong about Joanne. She is still in a bad way (hyper-tense) and is going to the doctor this evening. I tell you this because it is part of the total picture. Obviously her "state" has been induced ”to some extent by ”us. But you must not allow such matters to influence you in making such a vitally important decision as you have to. We are all suffering. Maybe you can understand why the "temptation" to talk to Jo can sometimes be so strong, quite apart from the pressure she so often subjects me to. I suppose I feel that only by openly recognising and accepting the dilemma can we properly resolve it. Her main anxiety has always been the preservation of our marriage. If she can be secure in that, and if she can fulfil herself more through her art, I believe that she would be content to allow us greater freedom together. But would that be enough for you?
Your letter. How wonderful to receive it. It came 5 days after what was possibly to be my last letter to you. I was set to wait until May was out and then, if I had not heard from you, to accept conclusion and turn my mind to other things. I am so glad that you did decide to write. It doesn't seem to contain much hope, yet it is so full of love. I do understand your predicament. Remember Yeats' lines:
"Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart."
Remember that no-one will ever love you as I do. That may sound both arrogant and selfish. It is, and it isn't, like love.
All I ask is that you don’t relinquish everything impulsively. It would be such a waste. I can see the temptation to resolve things. Human nature is readily drawn to applying formulae constituted of beginnings and endings. I think that we deserve more than that. I could accept the end and lead a life of ordered marriage and work. But what a loss. I feel that we belong together. Surely, if you feel that too, we must hang on, rather than reject one another? At the same time it is essential that you should return in a positive spirit: to England, to a satisfactory job or way of life, to contact with your family, to reunion with me. If the total prospect is alien to you, you would do better to stay.
I must end now. I love you, if possible, more than ever. The concept that I may never see or even hear from you again is devastating. Please keep in touch. I am not going to be the one to terminate what we have between us. I won't stop loving you. "Where there's life there's hope"! It's a fine summer's day here. I love you.
***
”21st June
I am sitting in a Wine Bar off Russell Square, on a grey day, about one hour before my annual summer "A" level meeting is due to take place.
I last wrote to you on May 16th, having written to you twice without reply, then receiving a letter. Subsequently I received a pencilled note, indicating your intention of returning, but providing no details whatsoever.
So, I am in the dark. When will you return? How will it be? I presume that you are as uncertain as I am.
I am writing this because I wish you were here with me. It has started to rain. I am also writing because I am entering my 3 week marking period, and am about to become a recluse. You might contact me out of the blue and a swift response might be necessary.
News would be superfluous. You may be in England at this very moment for all I know. I wonder why you are being so uncommunicative. Maybe you just need space to try to sort yourself out. I imagine that you realise that this makes life very difficult for me, and that you are taking that into account.
I shall be away for the first fortnight in August and, perhaps, from about August 22nd - 27th.
This may never "see the light of day", but it might provide me with a springboard for communication in June, July, August or September. Who knows. With love.
***
When Ruth returned to England, her rise to a better life and Julian's descent into a worse one were both to gather speed simultaneously. Some might say that one was the probable cause of the other in a world which is made up of relative and opposite forces; but if there was a connection neither party perceived it.
Determined never to enter a classroom again under any circumstances whatsoever, Ruth basked in her release from duty in the spirit of a reprieved prisoner. She savoured the delights of housekeeping as if the different chores of cleaning, shopping and cooking were her most favourite hobbies. And she looked after her son like a mother hen.
In short, if Tony wanted her presence as housekeeper and mother to his son, as well as nominally his wife, he would have to take on the whole burden of financial responsibility alone in exchange. If he didn't want to then they would sell up and split up. This Ruth made crystal clear by her actions; she didn't have to say a word.
Freedom and England! She now began to see her country through new eyes, unblinkered eyes, and eyes which had recently tried to see everything from an American's perspective. Suddenly she could appreciate all the old parts, the quaint parts, the winding roads, the green of the trees and the fields, everything the Americans had made such a fuss about. Apart from a close acquaintance with the forest floor and a hands-on experience in the bluebell woods, she had not noticed any of it before. So the whole history and mythology of England took on a fresh fascination for her.
She now warmed to the honesty and straightforwardness of the people, her people, the casual, off-hand service in the shops with no-one to croon "have a nice day". And the absence of all but only the most discreet advertising and no more loud talk about money and possessions. It was odd how the Americans would ask you what you did and how much you earned right after you'd been introduced; yet they seldom came close, sometimes not even in a whole lifetime, to airing their true and deeper feelings, even to their nearest and dearest. They could only seem to speak honestly to their analysts. Ruth thought it was probably to do with a) those puritan Pilgrim Fathers and b) the British class system but she gave up thinking about it after a while and vowed she would never again return to California.
Perhaps it was as a reaction to all the materialism of the United States that she now found it easy to whittle her life down, to prune it of all luxuries, of all the things she would no longer be able to afford now she had exchanged her role in the rat-race for blessed freedom! First she gave up smoking, drinking and driving, and began instead to cycle and walk, and explore the leafy back roads of this interesting country.
She found the exchange a real bargain. With all pressure off her for the first time in her whole life, she felt light-headed.
During her first month back she did not announce her presence to Julian, but now that she felt stronger and more in control, she also felt equal to seeing him, if only for old time's sake, and so she wrote him a short letter, addressing it to the college, and knowing perfectly well that nothing would change for the better if they began to see each other again, and that it was a case of taking what was on offer or nothing at all. But at this point their relationship was no longer the most important thing to her. By going away and then returning, Ruth had discovered that there was more to life than mere dependence upon one person for her personal happiness.
***
It was noon on a quiet September Saturday. They had greeted each other nervously in the usual car park and then driven 15 miles north to take them the other side of the Downs, and now they sat on a thick blanket protecting them from the damp at the side of a still unploughed field.
Blackberries hung in heavy clusters from the briars behind them and the holly already looked prominent anticipating the season ahead.
Julian at once began to uncork a bottle. Ruth noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead.
"It has been very difficult these last few weeks." He muttered, "big moves; internal workings. The whole system is changing. We shall have to be much more accountable on paper, all our free time will be monitored. No more extended lunches."
He told her that the college degrees were all going to cease coming from the neighbouring university and instead would be routed through an anonymous, impersonal body called the Council for National Academic Awards. And that the two colleges, one in Bognor and one in Chichester were going to become one so that his department would be bigger. And there was to be much reshuffling. And early retirements would be doled out.
"It's been fairly flexible up till now, and that has been good not only staff but for the students as well. They feel they can come any time and consult with me, sometimes we even have informal seminars in a student's room. The flexibility is important. The last thing we all need at this stage is to be tightened up."
"Well, I offered you a way out...."
He didn't respond. He poured the claret, hailed the season, took a sip and let out a long sigh.
"Have you tried this year's cob nuts yet?" he said, "They are particularly good just now…especially with a good port. It's my annual treat, preferably alone and by the glowing embers of an evening fire."
Ruth knew what he was saying: he was saying that he preferred England and that he preferred all the pleasures his well ordered life afforded. He felt comfortable with what he knew, with the security of tradition. And seeing him now outlined in the autumn countryside he looked very much a part of the whole scene, propped on one arm with a glass in one hand. She realised he wouldn't have been the same man in California. But then she hadn't been sure he had wanted to remain the same man.
"So you are completely decided about no more teaching?" He went on.
"Completely. It was a dreadful experience. Schools are terrible places. Everything is to do with pressure and force and noise - there's nothing natural about the process. I think they should be abolished."
"All of them? And what will take their place?"
"Come on, you never liked school did you - sent away at the age of 7, all the humiliation?"
"Some of it was good. I liked to do well. I liked to run. Some parts of the system work."
"Okay, so why not make it optional? Have the schools there but offer total choice. Kids should only have to go if they want to, if they want to learn. It would end the discipline problem then teachers could teach again."
"What would all the kids who opted out do? Who would care for them?" Julian smiled tolerantly.
"Look, I'm not saying it would happen overnight. Peoples' thinking would have to change and a process slowly evolve to provide options for all the varying needs. More jobs would have to become available; more activity centres. Parents would play a more active role if they wanted to...all sorts of things would have to change, but the basic premise should be - make education optional. Don't come to it till you want to." She took another drink determined to pursue this one.
"All right. How do they know if they want to? The children."
"To begin with their parents can decide if they want them to go to early learning centres for as long as they seem to benefit. But I don't think education ceases to happen to a child just because it's not in school. Just to live is an education in itself. Perhaps the first goal should not be the passing of exams leading to the getting of jobs. Perhaps the first goal should be 'think about it and decide for yourself'. Sure, some people will suffer as the result of poor judgement but they do now."
She looked at him squarely. "I don't think you really know what it's like in a Comprehensive School classroom today, you're used to Public Schools and Grammar Schools."
"The world is not an ideal place. I think we have to do the best with what we've got. Now… more wine?"
Ruth held out her glass, he would never be persuaded.
"I have an idea for my next career," she said.
"Give me a kiss" he said, "I'm just happy to be here with you."
"Do you want to hear about it? It's something you might want to do as well. Another opportunity..."
"I have commitments."
"Sometimes one has to make sacrifices... Listen. I've thought this out very carefully. The plan is this: a series of week-long literary tours for the Americans." She paused for effect.
"Tours of the English back roads to Jane Austen's house, Dickens' birthplace, Pope's oak; Hilaire Belloc; Keats; Blake; Tennyson; even Yeats and Pound - there are hundreds just in Sussex and Hampshire. And the Americans love English novels and finding the old England which is off the main tourist routes. Well?"
"What's Pope's oak?"
"It's a tree he's supposed to have sat under and composed the "Rape of the Lock", I have some great source books."
"How will you get to these places? How many at a time?"
"I think just small parties because you can't get a coach down many of the country roads. A mini-bus."
Ruth had high hopes that Julian would be immediately seized by the idea and that they would enthusiastically set about the enterprise together. Big investments of time and some expense would be necessary.
"First I will be writing the tours, finding the places, seeing how difficult it is to get to them. …and then writing to the current owners if they are not open to the public. It will take a while. I shall have to buy a car after all. Then I will write and print brochures..."
"You say week-long? Where will they stay?"
"I will find interesting hotels and B and B's too. Their whole week will be arranged for them by me. I will meet them off the plane and look after them for the whole week then take them to wherever they want to go afterwards."
"Hummm. How much will they pay? What about insurance - these Americans will sue at the drop of a hat you know."
"I've worked it all out: about £500 for the week inclusive. That's quite cheap because I'm just starting out. Don't know about insurance. What do you think?"
"I like the idea. There would have to be lectures or short talks. Virginia Woolf lived in East Sussex; and Edward Thomas in a beautiful part of Hampshire. It sounds very good - it has definite possibilities. It's always a good exercise to take the students out to such places. We could ask Tom Foster about other places - he's written a course called "Landscape and Literature."
Julian was interested but not more interested than in the current bottle of wine and the incipient picnic-lunch. And over lunch the conversation moved away from the tours and onto the more tangible and current problems of work, home and finances. And Ruth could see that her greater freedom and removal from the world of commitment and responsibility gave her greater leave to conjure with schemes like this, so she carefully stored her project away for another day and joined in instead with the lunch, and entered into the Saturday spirit, remembering that weekends to Julian were sacred.
His was a life made up clearly of work and play, whereas Ruth had begun to think it might be possible to have an occupation which provided equal pleasure. If life should be celebrated then surely all of life should be celebrated….and all of the time, not just at weekends.
Friday, 25 December 2009
Thursday, 24 December 2009
29 ~I shall always love you.
”Home, Thursday 25th April, 7.00pm”
I am sorry that I was so inadequate today, answering your call. I sensed that you were irritated, but I may be wrong. I have been pretty awful to be with since we parted.
I told Jo, eventually, to "clear the air" and in the hope of establishing some kind of agreement, some sort of compromise, to accommodate our wishes, desires and needs. But, of course, she was intransigent. It was the classic case of the wife saying: "It's up to you. You must choose." I suppose that that's what you have been saying too. Well, in those terms I have no choice. Unlike you, I am not free. Pushed to the brink of a decision, I would have to be loyal to my family.
Things don't look too hopeful right now, so I don't suppose it will come as much of a consolation to you to know that I love you. But, I do. I always will.
”Friday: The Bell Inn: 1.00pm”
I have been into college this sunny morning. I had a terrible night and felt lousy this morning. But it was a sensible thing to do. My general condition had deteriorated throughout the week, moping away at home, bemoaning our mutual loss.
I won't dwell long on this, but we must obviously get our "straight talking" done. Those 6 days may prove to be the happiest that we shall ever share together or with anyone else for that matter. But the chances of it ever happening again seem to me, at the moment, remote. It was only possible this time because Joanne was half-prepared to think of you as being in the States. When I returned she clearly "knew". It was only a question of time before she "prised" out "the truth". I gave absolutely no details, merely finally acquiesced to the question, "You did go on holiday with Ruth, didn't you?" I suppose that I somehow naively hoped that such an admission, confirming her suspicions without the world having tragically altered, might give rise to subsequent similar concessions.
What we have to face, I think, is that - despite the wonderful reaffirmation of our compatibility - the balance of our relationship has changed enormously. Before you went away you were, effectively, a married woman with a dependent son. We therefore experienced the same kind of problems in planning the times and places when we could afford to meet. You have decided to shed your responsibilities and to live and work for a while in California. But I remain a "happily married" man with 3 children all living at home. I regard myself as jointly responsible for their moral, social, educational, emotional, material (etc., etc.,) welfare. So what can I possibly offer to you, given that circumstance? I can't see any hope of our managing to achieve anything more than remaining loving friends and hopefully enjoying the luxury of occasional wonderful meetings. But that is unlikely to satisfy you much longer. What can you suggest that I could do, reasonably and fairly?
I don't want to pursue the pessimistic view much further. But I even begin to anticipate corresponding with you as an onerous task, both from the point of opportunity as well as attitude. This will be a demanding term with substantial amounts of my "free time" being spent in schools for the 8-week Block Practice and enormous loads of marking over 4 degree courses.
You had been asserting until recently that you were definitely returning in June and that you could hardly bear to wait for the time to arrive. The prospect of the Summer Term ending and the long period of summer family vacation ensuing and giving way to the Autumn Term again, with you still ensconced in California, seems intolerable. But, of course, I appreciate the practical realities. Maybe our subconscious fears helped to inject such special magic into our holiday?
(I'll stop now. I can only re-affirm to you my love. I shall always love you. How can one fall in love with a person as we both so completely did, have a wonderful time with "them" in exclusive intimacy over a period of 6 days, nearly EIGHT years later, and not know that you are always bound to love them. Let us both remember this. In the meantime, don't act with disproportionate haste in decision-making. We must try to sustain as much as possible of what we have shared over all this time. We must both persevere in understanding the other's circumstances, problems, difficulties without blame or criticism. It was good to hear you on the 'phone. Were you angry with me yesterday? I can understand if you were. I should have been next to the 'phone, alert, eager for your call. Instead, I was deep in a Scotch-induced sleep. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". "Nil desperandum." Love conquers all.)
”Home: Monday 29th April: 3.00pm”
....we also both know that life is not about having everything that one wants. I suppose that you and I represent for one another the supreme sacrifices that we have made (you for one whole quarter of your life to date!). But, surely the happiness shared on our recent holiday should give us the strength to have hope for the future, even if we can give it no clear definition. As you know, I said from the very beginning that I would not leave my wife and family; yet I have been in love with you continuously since that time.
We shall need a lot of courage and faith in the next few months. We shall need to remind one another of our continuing love and commitment. Any change in that should be communicated directly. I know that I won't change in my feelings for you, ever. But I can't do anything to affect or alter the situation. I suppose that we are getting caught up in a classical, perennial problem.
I must stop now. I love you beyond description and I long to hear from you.
”Home: Tuesday 30th April: 3.20pm”
I just want to tell you something. Since you went away in July, I have sometimes had contentment, relaxation, pleasure. But I never once had happiness. I was happy on the Tuesday that we met and, with a brief hiccup, during the 6 days that we shared together. That is terribly ”important”. Don't make any decisions that will close the door on happiness for you (and therefore me), although I believe that I hold your happiness of more importance than mine, ie. I have a satisfactory structure in which love and sympathy and support exist. You have yet to determine your main direction. But I want you to know, you must know, that if I were to "lose" you, if our paths were to finally diverge, it would be - for me - the most painful and distressing experience imaginable.
***
Not mechanical by nature Julian fussed unnecessarily with his son's tape recorder before managing to plug in the microphone, then set it for a suitable recording level - distrustful of its promise to "Automatic Record" - and then fixed in the cassette, the right way round. Having plugged it into the only spare socket in the sitting room he now found he had to sit on the floor to be in what he thought was the best recording position.
The house was empty. Ruth had been returned now to California a whole week after their holiday together in Wales during the Easter break.
"Hello," he began and found it to be a word that could carry many shades of emotion in the saying.
"I hope you're very well. And that you've re-settled. This is going to be difficult. It's a difficult exercise.
"I've just rung you and you were about to ring me. You're going to ring me again. I could catch all the implications of your feelings I think, I hope, I'm sure. And they mirror mine, reflect mine totally. It is so uncontrollable, the experience, it sweeps over all one's normal, conventional, moral, social norms. I'm so utterly and totally in love with you.
"So I have 20 minutes to come up with an answer which I don't suppose I shall do! You'll understand when you receive this how I'm feeling, how I was feeling as it were. Thank you for being you. I'm waiting to hear your call now. Goodbye. I love you so much. God bless. I hope we can work it out."
***
"...believe it or not that was only a few minutes ago and wasn't I at a low ebb. But we had our telephone call and I hope that you will understand the dips. I know you will. I'm sorry about the dips but if I didn't have them and know that you have them there wouldn't be the relationship that we have. I believe that we are totally simpatico, it's a lovely word because you were talking on the phone just now about how a week ago we were on the patio (!) after being down in the pub and walking up from Goodrich and meeting the goose, or was it the gander, or a subtle blend of two mixed in one, who knows. And then in the afternoon we had lunch or brunch on the terrace.... and all that holiday, all the best parts of it, all the things that occurred particularly in the last 3 days, were so marvellous. They mustn't be allowed to dwindle into nothing. I know that, and you know that.
"Anyway the next thing is, I may speak to you again before tomorrow. But more particularly I will expect a telephone call from you at 3.00 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. If I respond badly it will be because someone, probably Ben, will be in the house and I won't want to make it awkward for anyone else.
"Your absence devastates me. I know it does you from speaking to you today. And we've just got to do something sensible, intelligent to accommodate the problem. That sounds very clinical. I'm sorry about that, but that's it. I'm going to turn this off now because Robbie will be coming back very soon. I love you very much. Bye."
***
"Hello. It's 10.30 the following day, Thursday. I've got to speak very quietly because Benedict is downstairs in his room. I wouldn't like him to overhear anything. I apologised yesterday for the low points in my communication. Having replayed the tape, it seems like everything else: a necessary part of our experience together. So I have resisted the temptation to erase it.
"Last night I had a much franker talk with Joanne in the light of our talk - I said that you telephoned me from San Francisco. I told her that you are trying to return to this country and that it is important to each of us to be able to see one another. She was sympathetic to that notion but was adamant that she wouldn't accept my absence from the house during the course of a night. I didn't directly admit the circumstances of our holiday. And she hasn't pursued that one too far, oddly enough. So at one and the Same time she may have been in a position where she was sub-consciously, semi-consciously acknowledging that I had in fact been away with you for 6 nights. Whilst at the same time asserting that no single night in the future could be considered possible.
"I'm happier to have reasserted to her the nature of my feeling for you. It seems to me that without giving hurt, if one can be a little less furtive in everything one does, that it's better. But I'm a very, very long way from seeing any solution. And your invitation to me to come to the States, for one second yesterday seemed enticing and an almost realistic prospect. Now, it seems pure fantasy. I have a closely knit family and I've never left them for more than the amount of time we had on holiday. I resume work on Monday. I'm shortly going to get down to some marking that I've deferred for, believe it or not, nearly a month. The pay doesn't even enable us to live within our income. So for the time being it's very, very much a matter of, this end, of hanging on. Moving carefully, compromising. You're a very free agent. That has its huge advantages and some disadvantages. I'm not free. And that has some disadvantages and quite a few advantages. In that choices are made for me already. I'm going to stop for a moment. Please remember I'm having to speak in a very muted manner. I promise you before the end of this tape there will be a few merrier moments such as we have shared. We had a lot of laughter on our holiday. Some seriousness, some depressiveness, much joy, much ecstasy and quite a lot of laughter. All those things - I'm all for them. It seems so silly that we're both punishing ourselves. But you've cleared your slate. I haven't even begun. So I don't know what the answer is. Maybe I should talk to Jo more about it, maybe she'll be helpful. She didn't seem too unhappy this morning. Maybe she just needs me to ask her permission. Okay. I'll stop now. I love you."
***
"Okay. It's 3.00 o'clock, Thursday afternoon. You just rang. I was asleep. You were short, seemingly brusque, ending with 'Okay, I've got to go now, all right,' or something like that. Obviously you had to. But it encapsulated a principle. You didn't give me a chance really. And I can't come up with sudden goodies any more than you can. I don't know whether I shall send this tape or not. I probably will. Was that conclusion of yours a little fit of pique? Whatever it was it wasn't very satisfactory.
"All right. I don't want to pursue that line any further. Can't see that it was much worthwhile though. Have to put it down to, intolerance, displayed out of frustration at the distance, and hope that we can pick up from here a bit better. You're just about to go off to work, or you have.
"....I've got to do something to suggest to people in general that I'm worthwhile.
"I reserve the right to erase all this tape. Because I haven't got cheerfuller as I should have and I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry. Okay. Maybe I'll wipe the whole bloody thing off. Sorry."
***
”Home, Wednesday 1st May: 7.30pm”
I cannot express how much sadness I experienced at receiving your letter dated 26th April this afternoon. It is ironical that it arrived before the letter that you said you sent earlier, presumably celebrating our holiday, and which I have not yet received.
I will be brief. Your brief, justified, but inaccurate, speculations about how I came to tell Joanne about our holiday I think that I have explained already. She has been sympathetic and understanding. (How else would you expect me to come and spend a month with you in California?). To be prepared to conclude your correspondence with me, and our relationship, in a few terse words which accuse me of being "weak" and "like a child" seem uncharacteristically harsh, lacking in sufficient awareness and to demean everything that we have held to be important between us.
Your assertion that "we both have memories" seems to me of no consequence unless we have a context of possible present and future.
(Reflect upon the probable difference in your reaction had that second telephone call not taken place).
I realise that, for you, it was 6.30am I have before me, however, your seemingly final words: "I believe it is right that we stop now".
I will accept that conviction from you. In the event of a previously posted letter arriving, with happier implications, I shall be tempted to write something short. Then, if I hear nothing further, I shall cease correspondence, very reluctantly.
Should you regret your last words, or feel that to re-open communication could be beneficial, I would welcome such a gesture, more than I can say. In the meantime, I send you my love.
***
”Home, Friday 3rd May, 5.30pm
It seems that Fate has intervened once more. It gives me the courage to write to you, albeit very briefly. Quite extraordinarily, your letter suggesting cessation of our correspondence arrived 2 days earlier than the first, which I received from Paul today.
Thank you very much for that letter. You describe it as a "hectic and scribbled narrative". But it was a wonderful record (however painful) of your flux of experience. May I hope that you will remain in contact and forgive me for whatever it is that you think and feel that I have done wrong? If I don't hear from you, I won't worry you with further letters. I just can't believe, though, that all that has happened to us can be dismissed, as it were, with a snap of the fingers. It could be that this is a sensible, rational way of resolving the problem that we have - to allow the space between us and the passage of time to forge our separate futures. But I know that neither of us wants this to happen. So, I hope so much that we can hang on a little longer and see a way of coping with imperfection.
I love you so very much. I can't believe that you have gone. Please keep in touch and let me know how you are.
Remember that, apart from everything else, we are or should be the closest friends. We need to be able to help each other out in this most incalculable situation which so absolutely dominates both of us.
For now, I'll end. Thank you again for your letter. I love, admire, respect, adore you. I miss you enormously. Don't go away forever.
***
”Home, Monday 6th May, 6.45pm
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough hew them how we will".
The worst of it all is that I cannot sustain the notion of severance between us. Think how it has been to sit for a few moments waiting in the other's absence, for his or her return. Is that now lost to us forever?
I realise that this may be the last letter I shall ever write to you.
Today has been Bank Holiday Monday. Your absence worries away at my being all the time. At some point next week I will reply to what I regard as your last letter, the one that arrived most recently. I have written twice since your short, sharp and dismissive document. I don't believe that you could have meant what you said. I think that I understand why you found it necessary to express yourself in the way that you did. All I want to say now is that I regard our separation as an interminable loss. At the same time, I recognise that this might be the time to effect a break and accept that we shall never be able to realise the wonderful potential that exists between us. It seems that our personal philosophies have become too divergent.
Joanne is back. We have had a calm weekend. I miss you more than I can say. I always will while you're away. I shall always love you.
”The Fox, Thursday 9th May: 11.30am
Spring is here. Brilliant blossom. All the flowers, except daffodils, which are over. There are masses of forget-me-nots and bluebells.
I said that we had a "calm" weekend. I thought that we had. But Jo took Tuesday off with a migraine. On Wednesday, the Head enquired after her health and, it seems, she felt compelled to confide in him about "matters". Apparently, she has been under a lot of stress (feeling threatened etc) for a long time. I should be feeling sympathetic, and part of me does, but another very strong impulse is towards resentment.
Thank you again for your letter. If it is to be the last one I receive, then it is a very good one. I'm very sorry about Dan. I won't comment further, as you know that I don't share your views in this respect. I hope very much that he resettles in your absence. I understand very clearly your anxious preoccupations about him and us on your flight. Paul's psychiatrist says that there is a pattern that tends to apply whereby men need more than one woman to fully satisfy their range of emotional needs, whereas a woman tends to require all her needs to be satisfied in her chosen man. Tough, if it's true!
You say, "There could never be anyone else". The same is true of me. Nothing else could ever approach what we have shared. Besides, I feel so totally committed to you even if I have to accept that I've lost you forever. Other principles would/will have to take your place.
I won't write again after this, as I have now written 3 consecutive letters without hearing from you. I'm afraid I can supply no immediate solution to our problem.
I would love to hear from you again soon. I miss you so much. Let's not, anyway, end in recriminations. I shall always love you.
I am sorry that I was so inadequate today, answering your call. I sensed that you were irritated, but I may be wrong. I have been pretty awful to be with since we parted.
I told Jo, eventually, to "clear the air" and in the hope of establishing some kind of agreement, some sort of compromise, to accommodate our wishes, desires and needs. But, of course, she was intransigent. It was the classic case of the wife saying: "It's up to you. You must choose." I suppose that that's what you have been saying too. Well, in those terms I have no choice. Unlike you, I am not free. Pushed to the brink of a decision, I would have to be loyal to my family.
Things don't look too hopeful right now, so I don't suppose it will come as much of a consolation to you to know that I love you. But, I do. I always will.
”Friday: The Bell Inn: 1.00pm”
I have been into college this sunny morning. I had a terrible night and felt lousy this morning. But it was a sensible thing to do. My general condition had deteriorated throughout the week, moping away at home, bemoaning our mutual loss.
I won't dwell long on this, but we must obviously get our "straight talking" done. Those 6 days may prove to be the happiest that we shall ever share together or with anyone else for that matter. But the chances of it ever happening again seem to me, at the moment, remote. It was only possible this time because Joanne was half-prepared to think of you as being in the States. When I returned she clearly "knew". It was only a question of time before she "prised" out "the truth". I gave absolutely no details, merely finally acquiesced to the question, "You did go on holiday with Ruth, didn't you?" I suppose that I somehow naively hoped that such an admission, confirming her suspicions without the world having tragically altered, might give rise to subsequent similar concessions.
What we have to face, I think, is that - despite the wonderful reaffirmation of our compatibility - the balance of our relationship has changed enormously. Before you went away you were, effectively, a married woman with a dependent son. We therefore experienced the same kind of problems in planning the times and places when we could afford to meet. You have decided to shed your responsibilities and to live and work for a while in California. But I remain a "happily married" man with 3 children all living at home. I regard myself as jointly responsible for their moral, social, educational, emotional, material (etc., etc.,) welfare. So what can I possibly offer to you, given that circumstance? I can't see any hope of our managing to achieve anything more than remaining loving friends and hopefully enjoying the luxury of occasional wonderful meetings. But that is unlikely to satisfy you much longer. What can you suggest that I could do, reasonably and fairly?
I don't want to pursue the pessimistic view much further. But I even begin to anticipate corresponding with you as an onerous task, both from the point of opportunity as well as attitude. This will be a demanding term with substantial amounts of my "free time" being spent in schools for the 8-week Block Practice and enormous loads of marking over 4 degree courses.
You had been asserting until recently that you were definitely returning in June and that you could hardly bear to wait for the time to arrive. The prospect of the Summer Term ending and the long period of summer family vacation ensuing and giving way to the Autumn Term again, with you still ensconced in California, seems intolerable. But, of course, I appreciate the practical realities. Maybe our subconscious fears helped to inject such special magic into our holiday?
(I'll stop now. I can only re-affirm to you my love. I shall always love you. How can one fall in love with a person as we both so completely did, have a wonderful time with "them" in exclusive intimacy over a period of 6 days, nearly EIGHT years later, and not know that you are always bound to love them. Let us both remember this. In the meantime, don't act with disproportionate haste in decision-making. We must try to sustain as much as possible of what we have shared over all this time. We must both persevere in understanding the other's circumstances, problems, difficulties without blame or criticism. It was good to hear you on the 'phone. Were you angry with me yesterday? I can understand if you were. I should have been next to the 'phone, alert, eager for your call. Instead, I was deep in a Scotch-induced sleep. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". "Nil desperandum." Love conquers all.)
”Home: Monday 29th April: 3.00pm”
....we also both know that life is not about having everything that one wants. I suppose that you and I represent for one another the supreme sacrifices that we have made (you for one whole quarter of your life to date!). But, surely the happiness shared on our recent holiday should give us the strength to have hope for the future, even if we can give it no clear definition. As you know, I said from the very beginning that I would not leave my wife and family; yet I have been in love with you continuously since that time.
We shall need a lot of courage and faith in the next few months. We shall need to remind one another of our continuing love and commitment. Any change in that should be communicated directly. I know that I won't change in my feelings for you, ever. But I can't do anything to affect or alter the situation. I suppose that we are getting caught up in a classical, perennial problem.
I must stop now. I love you beyond description and I long to hear from you.
”Home: Tuesday 30th April: 3.20pm”
I just want to tell you something. Since you went away in July, I have sometimes had contentment, relaxation, pleasure. But I never once had happiness. I was happy on the Tuesday that we met and, with a brief hiccup, during the 6 days that we shared together. That is terribly ”important”. Don't make any decisions that will close the door on happiness for you (and therefore me), although I believe that I hold your happiness of more importance than mine, ie. I have a satisfactory structure in which love and sympathy and support exist. You have yet to determine your main direction. But I want you to know, you must know, that if I were to "lose" you, if our paths were to finally diverge, it would be - for me - the most painful and distressing experience imaginable.
***
Not mechanical by nature Julian fussed unnecessarily with his son's tape recorder before managing to plug in the microphone, then set it for a suitable recording level - distrustful of its promise to "Automatic Record" - and then fixed in the cassette, the right way round. Having plugged it into the only spare socket in the sitting room he now found he had to sit on the floor to be in what he thought was the best recording position.
The house was empty. Ruth had been returned now to California a whole week after their holiday together in Wales during the Easter break.
"Hello," he began and found it to be a word that could carry many shades of emotion in the saying.
"I hope you're very well. And that you've re-settled. This is going to be difficult. It's a difficult exercise.
"I've just rung you and you were about to ring me. You're going to ring me again. I could catch all the implications of your feelings I think, I hope, I'm sure. And they mirror mine, reflect mine totally. It is so uncontrollable, the experience, it sweeps over all one's normal, conventional, moral, social norms. I'm so utterly and totally in love with you.
"So I have 20 minutes to come up with an answer which I don't suppose I shall do! You'll understand when you receive this how I'm feeling, how I was feeling as it were. Thank you for being you. I'm waiting to hear your call now. Goodbye. I love you so much. God bless. I hope we can work it out."
***
"...believe it or not that was only a few minutes ago and wasn't I at a low ebb. But we had our telephone call and I hope that you will understand the dips. I know you will. I'm sorry about the dips but if I didn't have them and know that you have them there wouldn't be the relationship that we have. I believe that we are totally simpatico, it's a lovely word because you were talking on the phone just now about how a week ago we were on the patio (!) after being down in the pub and walking up from Goodrich and meeting the goose, or was it the gander, or a subtle blend of two mixed in one, who knows. And then in the afternoon we had lunch or brunch on the terrace.... and all that holiday, all the best parts of it, all the things that occurred particularly in the last 3 days, were so marvellous. They mustn't be allowed to dwindle into nothing. I know that, and you know that.
"Anyway the next thing is, I may speak to you again before tomorrow. But more particularly I will expect a telephone call from you at 3.00 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. If I respond badly it will be because someone, probably Ben, will be in the house and I won't want to make it awkward for anyone else.
"Your absence devastates me. I know it does you from speaking to you today. And we've just got to do something sensible, intelligent to accommodate the problem. That sounds very clinical. I'm sorry about that, but that's it. I'm going to turn this off now because Robbie will be coming back very soon. I love you very much. Bye."
***
"Hello. It's 10.30 the following day, Thursday. I've got to speak very quietly because Benedict is downstairs in his room. I wouldn't like him to overhear anything. I apologised yesterday for the low points in my communication. Having replayed the tape, it seems like everything else: a necessary part of our experience together. So I have resisted the temptation to erase it.
"Last night I had a much franker talk with Joanne in the light of our talk - I said that you telephoned me from San Francisco. I told her that you are trying to return to this country and that it is important to each of us to be able to see one another. She was sympathetic to that notion but was adamant that she wouldn't accept my absence from the house during the course of a night. I didn't directly admit the circumstances of our holiday. And she hasn't pursued that one too far, oddly enough. So at one and the Same time she may have been in a position where she was sub-consciously, semi-consciously acknowledging that I had in fact been away with you for 6 nights. Whilst at the same time asserting that no single night in the future could be considered possible.
"I'm happier to have reasserted to her the nature of my feeling for you. It seems to me that without giving hurt, if one can be a little less furtive in everything one does, that it's better. But I'm a very, very long way from seeing any solution. And your invitation to me to come to the States, for one second yesterday seemed enticing and an almost realistic prospect. Now, it seems pure fantasy. I have a closely knit family and I've never left them for more than the amount of time we had on holiday. I resume work on Monday. I'm shortly going to get down to some marking that I've deferred for, believe it or not, nearly a month. The pay doesn't even enable us to live within our income. So for the time being it's very, very much a matter of, this end, of hanging on. Moving carefully, compromising. You're a very free agent. That has its huge advantages and some disadvantages. I'm not free. And that has some disadvantages and quite a few advantages. In that choices are made for me already. I'm going to stop for a moment. Please remember I'm having to speak in a very muted manner. I promise you before the end of this tape there will be a few merrier moments such as we have shared. We had a lot of laughter on our holiday. Some seriousness, some depressiveness, much joy, much ecstasy and quite a lot of laughter. All those things - I'm all for them. It seems so silly that we're both punishing ourselves. But you've cleared your slate. I haven't even begun. So I don't know what the answer is. Maybe I should talk to Jo more about it, maybe she'll be helpful. She didn't seem too unhappy this morning. Maybe she just needs me to ask her permission. Okay. I'll stop now. I love you."
***
"Okay. It's 3.00 o'clock, Thursday afternoon. You just rang. I was asleep. You were short, seemingly brusque, ending with 'Okay, I've got to go now, all right,' or something like that. Obviously you had to. But it encapsulated a principle. You didn't give me a chance really. And I can't come up with sudden goodies any more than you can. I don't know whether I shall send this tape or not. I probably will. Was that conclusion of yours a little fit of pique? Whatever it was it wasn't very satisfactory.
"All right. I don't want to pursue that line any further. Can't see that it was much worthwhile though. Have to put it down to, intolerance, displayed out of frustration at the distance, and hope that we can pick up from here a bit better. You're just about to go off to work, or you have.
"....I've got to do something to suggest to people in general that I'm worthwhile.
"I reserve the right to erase all this tape. Because I haven't got cheerfuller as I should have and I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry. Okay. Maybe I'll wipe the whole bloody thing off. Sorry."
***
”Home, Wednesday 1st May: 7.30pm”
I cannot express how much sadness I experienced at receiving your letter dated 26th April this afternoon. It is ironical that it arrived before the letter that you said you sent earlier, presumably celebrating our holiday, and which I have not yet received.
I will be brief. Your brief, justified, but inaccurate, speculations about how I came to tell Joanne about our holiday I think that I have explained already. She has been sympathetic and understanding. (How else would you expect me to come and spend a month with you in California?). To be prepared to conclude your correspondence with me, and our relationship, in a few terse words which accuse me of being "weak" and "like a child" seem uncharacteristically harsh, lacking in sufficient awareness and to demean everything that we have held to be important between us.
Your assertion that "we both have memories" seems to me of no consequence unless we have a context of possible present and future.
(Reflect upon the probable difference in your reaction had that second telephone call not taken place).
I realise that, for you, it was 6.30am I have before me, however, your seemingly final words: "I believe it is right that we stop now".
I will accept that conviction from you. In the event of a previously posted letter arriving, with happier implications, I shall be tempted to write something short. Then, if I hear nothing further, I shall cease correspondence, very reluctantly.
Should you regret your last words, or feel that to re-open communication could be beneficial, I would welcome such a gesture, more than I can say. In the meantime, I send you my love.
***
”Home, Friday 3rd May, 5.30pm
It seems that Fate has intervened once more. It gives me the courage to write to you, albeit very briefly. Quite extraordinarily, your letter suggesting cessation of our correspondence arrived 2 days earlier than the first, which I received from Paul today.
Thank you very much for that letter. You describe it as a "hectic and scribbled narrative". But it was a wonderful record (however painful) of your flux of experience. May I hope that you will remain in contact and forgive me for whatever it is that you think and feel that I have done wrong? If I don't hear from you, I won't worry you with further letters. I just can't believe, though, that all that has happened to us can be dismissed, as it were, with a snap of the fingers. It could be that this is a sensible, rational way of resolving the problem that we have - to allow the space between us and the passage of time to forge our separate futures. But I know that neither of us wants this to happen. So, I hope so much that we can hang on a little longer and see a way of coping with imperfection.
I love you so very much. I can't believe that you have gone. Please keep in touch and let me know how you are.
Remember that, apart from everything else, we are or should be the closest friends. We need to be able to help each other out in this most incalculable situation which so absolutely dominates both of us.
For now, I'll end. Thank you again for your letter. I love, admire, respect, adore you. I miss you enormously. Don't go away forever.
***
”Home, Monday 6th May, 6.45pm
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough hew them how we will".
The worst of it all is that I cannot sustain the notion of severance between us. Think how it has been to sit for a few moments waiting in the other's absence, for his or her return. Is that now lost to us forever?
I realise that this may be the last letter I shall ever write to you.
Today has been Bank Holiday Monday. Your absence worries away at my being all the time. At some point next week I will reply to what I regard as your last letter, the one that arrived most recently. I have written twice since your short, sharp and dismissive document. I don't believe that you could have meant what you said. I think that I understand why you found it necessary to express yourself in the way that you did. All I want to say now is that I regard our separation as an interminable loss. At the same time, I recognise that this might be the time to effect a break and accept that we shall never be able to realise the wonderful potential that exists between us. It seems that our personal philosophies have become too divergent.
Joanne is back. We have had a calm weekend. I miss you more than I can say. I always will while you're away. I shall always love you.
”The Fox, Thursday 9th May: 11.30am
Spring is here. Brilliant blossom. All the flowers, except daffodils, which are over. There are masses of forget-me-nots and bluebells.
I said that we had a "calm" weekend. I thought that we had. But Jo took Tuesday off with a migraine. On Wednesday, the Head enquired after her health and, it seems, she felt compelled to confide in him about "matters". Apparently, she has been under a lot of stress (feeling threatened etc) for a long time. I should be feeling sympathetic, and part of me does, but another very strong impulse is towards resentment.
Thank you again for your letter. If it is to be the last one I receive, then it is a very good one. I'm very sorry about Dan. I won't comment further, as you know that I don't share your views in this respect. I hope very much that he resettles in your absence. I understand very clearly your anxious preoccupations about him and us on your flight. Paul's psychiatrist says that there is a pattern that tends to apply whereby men need more than one woman to fully satisfy their range of emotional needs, whereas a woman tends to require all her needs to be satisfied in her chosen man. Tough, if it's true!
You say, "There could never be anyone else". The same is true of me. Nothing else could ever approach what we have shared. Besides, I feel so totally committed to you even if I have to accept that I've lost you forever. Other principles would/will have to take your place.
I won't write again after this, as I have now written 3 consecutive letters without hearing from you. I'm afraid I can supply no immediate solution to our problem.
I would love to hear from you again soon. I miss you so much. Let's not, anyway, end in recriminations. I shall always love you.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
28 ~ Back to Real Life
Back in San Francisco Ruth had to make certain decisions alone, one of which was did she want to stay on out here and do another year or two, or not? Although it was hard work, with the first year behind her and all her grievances aired, she felt she could probably cope with a second year.
But only if she had someone to share it with, to make it all make sense.
So she sat down at her typewriter and wrote Julian a very carefully worded letter, inviting him to come out and live with her. She said she would support him financially because he needed a good break, it would do him good to leave all his problems behind. He hated his job anyway. She said he would be free to enjoy the delights of the West Coast and that they would manage very well on her salary. She could clearly see he was making himself ill with things being as they were, and she thought it would be good for him to be decisive and assertive, to choose finally between her and his family. A healthy option.
And it would be good for her to have him demonstrate his love by making such a sacrifice. It would prove to her that he really cared. If he chose not to come, equally they would still both know where they stood and they could stop making themselves ill by wanting what they couldn't have. The uncertainty was as bad as anything. So she asked him to phone her when he received the letter, to make his response. She knew it was a long-shot but she'd once more reached that point of make or break.
***
Julian sat at his desk and turned towards the bed to look at Jane. It was midnight. She had dropped off to sleep with her mouth open and was snoring slightly. He took a sip of whiskey and read over what he'd written:
Please can I have you back again
Don't run away like this
I need the feel of your hair again
And the touch of that first long kiss
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
Please can I see your steady eyes
Their happy or sombre gaze
Can I hold my arm around you
And wander in woodland ways
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
Can we laugh and cry together
Make love in the sun and rain
Hold hands in the early evening light
And make love again at night
Can we lie beneath the stars before dawning
Share a drink from the Dane glass of wine
I want to have you so much again
I wish that you were mine
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
And then he looked again at Ruth's letter. An impossible dream. Creeping downstairs so as not to wake his slumbering wife he figured it must be around the time Ruth got back from school so he took the phone through to the sitting room and dialled her number. It rang and he took a large swig of scotch as he braced himself for the sound of her voice:
"Hello. It's me."
"Hello you."
"I received your letter this afternoon. I've just written you a song. Shall I read it to you?"
"Sure." And he did.
"Do you like it?" He took another drink.
"Yes," she said hoping this was a preamble to the main thrust of the call, "send it to me. So, what do you think of my proposition?"
"Ha! that's what I admire, a person who goes straight to the point. Incisive."
Ruth realised he was drinking and her heart sank.
"Listen," he said, "I've been thinking of you so much." He slurred his words.
"Really?" She realised now that any cogent and sensible conversation was out of the question. And then she felt deeply let down and hurt that he hadn't even taken seriously the precious gift she'd offered him. Of herself and a new life in a new place. It reminded her of the time she gave him her grandfather's signet ring.
Well, now she knew. As soon as it was possible she ended the call and then sat herself down once more to write him another letter. This time telling him in no uncertain terms that she was finished with him once and for all.
***
”Home, Monday 22nd April, 9.30am”
Dear Ruth,
How much I have missed you. Where to begin? What to say?
I am sitting at my desk, a glass of Malvern Holywell Water at my elbow, and feeling dreadfully depressed. It is a grey, windy day and back to being very cold. Monday morning. You will be a few hours away from facing your first working day. I still have another week to go. It is a full week since you and I embarked on our long walk along the Wye Valley from Goodrich.
It would fill a book to relate the intensity and, often, ecstasy of those six days. So I'll just savour a few memories for now: the excitement of anticipation on the Friday evening drive to near Beckington, south of Bath. Our first drink. The seemingly providential discovery of Mrs Brown's B & B. Our meal of trout, and the wonderful sense of intimacy that informed the rest of the evening and night.
Saturday: baths, our gentle walk before breakfast. Bath, my strong desire for a couple of beers, your melancholy fit, St. Briavels for late drinks and a temporary lift in our moods. Monmouth, pouring rain, Reisling in the car. The ascent to the cottage. Immediate, delighted acceptance. Ross on Wye. Indian take-away. Both over-tired. The one bad night.
Sunday: Hereford. Dreary hunt for a decent pub. Tandoori restaurant, hurt emotions, misunderstandings. Cathedral. The sunny hillside, sleeps and I read ”The Sunday Times”. Bacon and eggs and a much better night.
Monday (one week ago): cups of tea, a bath and mutual shampooing of hair. Bucks Fizz. An overcast day, but warm. Walk to the pub. Advice from gentleman reading ”The Financial Times” about possible walks. Then the long walk all the way round and back to Goodrich. A loving night.
Tuesday: The walk up the ridge, sunny, happy, loving. Back for Bucks Fizz on the terrace. Little Malvern via Much Marcle. A fine day. British Camp Hotel, followed by ascent of the Worcestershire Beacon. Beginning of spurious history lessons. Great Malvern. Couple of drinks in a pub. Winter Gardens. The Holy Well. St. Richard's and Elgar's grave. The walk up the hillside. Ledbury and tea. The fight - Hagler v. Hearns. Another wonderful night.
Wednesday: A leisurly start. Goodrich castle. More history. "Veni, vidi, vici." (Julius Caesar). "Non Angli, sed Angeli." (St. Augustine). Long spell in the village pub (Ethel, Mavis, Steve, Les, Bill, Joe and Edna and Crispin). The walk back up the hillside. Was that when we met the goose? A funeral at the church. Brunch on the terrace. Our last evening in the house. A sense of wanting to possess it and inform it even more intently/intensely. What did we eat? Did we watch some T.V? More loving, poignant and beautiful. Your decision to defer setting the house in order until the morning.
Thursday: efficiency and purposefulness displayed by both. Departure by about 8.00am. Fine day. Ultimate rediscovery of the Woodford pub. Steaks in the garden with the House-Red. Photographs. Last to leave. Presents and phone calls near home. Elsted and farewell.
That does no justice to our time together. It was a wonderful, truly magnificent holiday - all the better, I think, for its undramatic scale, i.e. we found the ideal place to be alone together, to share our love in a way that has not been possible before and to make occasional stimulating forays into "civilisation".
It could hardly have been better, given that - I suppose - we shall always bring some stress to the situations that we create for each other. I love you so much. The holiday reminded me so powerfully of that, confirmed it and strengthened it. I feel that I also learned and re-learned the significance of so many areas of our relationship that had to have been affected by such a long period of absence.
I wonder how you have adjusted to your huge and sudden shift? Are you experiencing, as Lou predicted, a fresh dose of "culture shock"? Did the end of our holiday leave you feeling bereft, or were there too many other preoccupations to allow you to be at all self-absorbed?
Things here have been pretty awful. Joanne said, "We have been missing you a lot. Robbie had a little weep with me last night."
I don't really know how to explain the events of the past four days. It seems that I have been distant, evasive, uncommunicative, lacking in affection and so on. I suppose that I wanted and was internally driven to cherish and enshrine all that we had shared together and this required substantial remoteness. Naturally Joanne, who was already tired from her working and family week, resented this. I think also, however, that she characteristically "hounded" me for information when it must have been clear that I wasn't bursting to reveal specific details and phases of my holiday. This had the initial effect of making me even more withdrawn, then hard and cold and finally aggressive. Of course, my drinking tended to accelerate which exacerbated matters further.
Things have improved a little now. Jo has clearly had very strong suspicions that I have been with you, but she may also have suspected - I suppose - that I have been conducting a new affair! Whatever the case, I have reminded her that I should be entitled to periodic breaks from family routine and that she should respect my personal privacy as long as she does not suspect that the marriage is in jeopardy as a result. And I have assured her that this is not the case. I've no doubt that she will renew assaults in a less overt way soon. But the atmosphere has improved. I decided that it would serve no fair or kind purpose at this point to admit how things are between you and me. After all, we don't know yet what's going to happen in the near future.
I seem to have run out of momentum. It seems a desolate existence, having been reminded how perfectly content and happy you and I are together, after so many years, however fleeting they may have been. Is it like that, do you think, precisely because of the relative rarity and brevity of our meetings and the predispositions of our two natures? Have you, from your new position back in S.F., after our holiday, any suggestions to offer? Or are there none? Do we carry on hoping for occasional chances of happiness? After all we have been more fortunate this last time than ever before and the principle feeling should be of gratitude. And of course it is. But we have our selfish natures too.
It occurs to me that, if I didn't have to do other things and if I couldn't live with you, I would just dream of you and me (us) forever....
I look forward to confirmation of your love for me, soon. I love you with all my heart. I hope that we shall be able to achieve something very special for ourselves before too long. It was wonderful having our own special place for those few, precious days and nights. Goodbye and God bless.
But only if she had someone to share it with, to make it all make sense.
So she sat down at her typewriter and wrote Julian a very carefully worded letter, inviting him to come out and live with her. She said she would support him financially because he needed a good break, it would do him good to leave all his problems behind. He hated his job anyway. She said he would be free to enjoy the delights of the West Coast and that they would manage very well on her salary. She could clearly see he was making himself ill with things being as they were, and she thought it would be good for him to be decisive and assertive, to choose finally between her and his family. A healthy option.
And it would be good for her to have him demonstrate his love by making such a sacrifice. It would prove to her that he really cared. If he chose not to come, equally they would still both know where they stood and they could stop making themselves ill by wanting what they couldn't have. The uncertainty was as bad as anything. So she asked him to phone her when he received the letter, to make his response. She knew it was a long-shot but she'd once more reached that point of make or break.
***
Julian sat at his desk and turned towards the bed to look at Jane. It was midnight. She had dropped off to sleep with her mouth open and was snoring slightly. He took a sip of whiskey and read over what he'd written:
Please can I have you back again
Don't run away like this
I need the feel of your hair again
And the touch of that first long kiss
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
Please can I see your steady eyes
Their happy or sombre gaze
Can I hold my arm around you
And wander in woodland ways
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
Can we laugh and cry together
Make love in the sun and rain
Hold hands in the early evening light
And make love again at night
Can we lie beneath the stars before dawning
Share a drink from the Dane glass of wine
I want to have you so much again
I wish that you were mine
Come back, come back
This life is short and all time fades away
And then he looked again at Ruth's letter. An impossible dream. Creeping downstairs so as not to wake his slumbering wife he figured it must be around the time Ruth got back from school so he took the phone through to the sitting room and dialled her number. It rang and he took a large swig of scotch as he braced himself for the sound of her voice:
"Hello. It's me."
"Hello you."
"I received your letter this afternoon. I've just written you a song. Shall I read it to you?"
"Sure." And he did.
"Do you like it?" He took another drink.
"Yes," she said hoping this was a preamble to the main thrust of the call, "send it to me. So, what do you think of my proposition?"
"Ha! that's what I admire, a person who goes straight to the point. Incisive."
Ruth realised he was drinking and her heart sank.
"Listen," he said, "I've been thinking of you so much." He slurred his words.
"Really?" She realised now that any cogent and sensible conversation was out of the question. And then she felt deeply let down and hurt that he hadn't even taken seriously the precious gift she'd offered him. Of herself and a new life in a new place. It reminded her of the time she gave him her grandfather's signet ring.
Well, now she knew. As soon as it was possible she ended the call and then sat herself down once more to write him another letter. This time telling him in no uncertain terms that she was finished with him once and for all.
***
”Home, Monday 22nd April, 9.30am”
Dear Ruth,
How much I have missed you. Where to begin? What to say?
I am sitting at my desk, a glass of Malvern Holywell Water at my elbow, and feeling dreadfully depressed. It is a grey, windy day and back to being very cold. Monday morning. You will be a few hours away from facing your first working day. I still have another week to go. It is a full week since you and I embarked on our long walk along the Wye Valley from Goodrich.
It would fill a book to relate the intensity and, often, ecstasy of those six days. So I'll just savour a few memories for now: the excitement of anticipation on the Friday evening drive to near Beckington, south of Bath. Our first drink. The seemingly providential discovery of Mrs Brown's B & B. Our meal of trout, and the wonderful sense of intimacy that informed the rest of the evening and night.
Saturday: baths, our gentle walk before breakfast. Bath, my strong desire for a couple of beers, your melancholy fit, St. Briavels for late drinks and a temporary lift in our moods. Monmouth, pouring rain, Reisling in the car. The ascent to the cottage. Immediate, delighted acceptance. Ross on Wye. Indian take-away. Both over-tired. The one bad night.
Sunday: Hereford. Dreary hunt for a decent pub. Tandoori restaurant, hurt emotions, misunderstandings. Cathedral. The sunny hillside, sleeps and I read ”The Sunday Times”. Bacon and eggs and a much better night.
Monday (one week ago): cups of tea, a bath and mutual shampooing of hair. Bucks Fizz. An overcast day, but warm. Walk to the pub. Advice from gentleman reading ”The Financial Times” about possible walks. Then the long walk all the way round and back to Goodrich. A loving night.
Tuesday: The walk up the ridge, sunny, happy, loving. Back for Bucks Fizz on the terrace. Little Malvern via Much Marcle. A fine day. British Camp Hotel, followed by ascent of the Worcestershire Beacon. Beginning of spurious history lessons. Great Malvern. Couple of drinks in a pub. Winter Gardens. The Holy Well. St. Richard's and Elgar's grave. The walk up the hillside. Ledbury and tea. The fight - Hagler v. Hearns. Another wonderful night.
Wednesday: A leisurly start. Goodrich castle. More history. "Veni, vidi, vici." (Julius Caesar). "Non Angli, sed Angeli." (St. Augustine). Long spell in the village pub (Ethel, Mavis, Steve, Les, Bill, Joe and Edna and Crispin). The walk back up the hillside. Was that when we met the goose? A funeral at the church. Brunch on the terrace. Our last evening in the house. A sense of wanting to possess it and inform it even more intently/intensely. What did we eat? Did we watch some T.V? More loving, poignant and beautiful. Your decision to defer setting the house in order until the morning.
Thursday: efficiency and purposefulness displayed by both. Departure by about 8.00am. Fine day. Ultimate rediscovery of the Woodford pub. Steaks in the garden with the House-Red. Photographs. Last to leave. Presents and phone calls near home. Elsted and farewell.
That does no justice to our time together. It was a wonderful, truly magnificent holiday - all the better, I think, for its undramatic scale, i.e. we found the ideal place to be alone together, to share our love in a way that has not been possible before and to make occasional stimulating forays into "civilisation".
It could hardly have been better, given that - I suppose - we shall always bring some stress to the situations that we create for each other. I love you so much. The holiday reminded me so powerfully of that, confirmed it and strengthened it. I feel that I also learned and re-learned the significance of so many areas of our relationship that had to have been affected by such a long period of absence.
I wonder how you have adjusted to your huge and sudden shift? Are you experiencing, as Lou predicted, a fresh dose of "culture shock"? Did the end of our holiday leave you feeling bereft, or were there too many other preoccupations to allow you to be at all self-absorbed?
Things here have been pretty awful. Joanne said, "We have been missing you a lot. Robbie had a little weep with me last night."
I don't really know how to explain the events of the past four days. It seems that I have been distant, evasive, uncommunicative, lacking in affection and so on. I suppose that I wanted and was internally driven to cherish and enshrine all that we had shared together and this required substantial remoteness. Naturally Joanne, who was already tired from her working and family week, resented this. I think also, however, that she characteristically "hounded" me for information when it must have been clear that I wasn't bursting to reveal specific details and phases of my holiday. This had the initial effect of making me even more withdrawn, then hard and cold and finally aggressive. Of course, my drinking tended to accelerate which exacerbated matters further.
Things have improved a little now. Jo has clearly had very strong suspicions that I have been with you, but she may also have suspected - I suppose - that I have been conducting a new affair! Whatever the case, I have reminded her that I should be entitled to periodic breaks from family routine and that she should respect my personal privacy as long as she does not suspect that the marriage is in jeopardy as a result. And I have assured her that this is not the case. I've no doubt that she will renew assaults in a less overt way soon. But the atmosphere has improved. I decided that it would serve no fair or kind purpose at this point to admit how things are between you and me. After all, we don't know yet what's going to happen in the near future.
I seem to have run out of momentum. It seems a desolate existence, having been reminded how perfectly content and happy you and I are together, after so many years, however fleeting they may have been. Is it like that, do you think, precisely because of the relative rarity and brevity of our meetings and the predispositions of our two natures? Have you, from your new position back in S.F., after our holiday, any suggestions to offer? Or are there none? Do we carry on hoping for occasional chances of happiness? After all we have been more fortunate this last time than ever before and the principle feeling should be of gratitude. And of course it is. But we have our selfish natures too.
It occurs to me that, if I didn't have to do other things and if I couldn't live with you, I would just dream of you and me (us) forever....
I look forward to confirmation of your love for me, soon. I love you with all my heart. I hope that we shall be able to achieve something very special for ourselves before too long. It was wonderful having our own special place for those few, precious days and nights. Goodbye and God bless.
Friday, 18 December 2009
27 ~ The Easter Holiday
"Now look," he said, taking his head out of the boot and looking her straight in the eye, "she is in America. How many more times? She is still in America. How can I possibly be up to any hanky-panky if she's on the other side of the world?"
He slammed shut the boot to make his point, and with a lot of growling and muttering marched back into the house. He was certainly putting on a good show this time, he was almost convinced himself.
Huffing and puffing at the unreasonableness of some women he picked out a few items of cutlery, a mug and a plate, two glasses, some kitchen towel, packed them into the box containing the calor gas stove and swept past her again back to the boot.
The act was a necessary part of the ritual. In order that he might be allowed to go she had to truly believe it was a case of "man needing to be alone in nature away from family"; rather than "man needing to take off with mistress in nature away from family". So it was his moral responsibility to be convincing and give her no cause for suspicion or anxiety.
"I will phone you every evening around 6.00pm - I'll reverse the charges," he used his most patient tone of voice, "and I will be back at the end of the week bursting with renewed life and vigour." He kissed her peremptorily on her unmoved cheek ignoring the ever-questioning look and went back to counting the tent-pegs.
Realising he was about to disappear for good Jane dispensed with the "attack/accuse" mode and as a final gambit moved into "sad, helpless and adorable" in a last-ditch attempt to hang onto him before she rose as usual to the more seemly brave-front attitude of "I'll cope, have a good time, and we'll look forward to having you back" which he needed to see and hear in order to feel all right about leaving.
He had made an especially big fuss about the tent this time as a foil, because he and Ruth had decided to rent a cottage. They planned to share a whole week in South Wales and Jules had been nervous about it now for nearly two months.
Right up to the day she left for the States he made it clear he wanted her to stay. But he'd known it was an unfair request because he could offer her nothing. Nothing, that is, other than the continuance of what they already had. And he could see this wasn't enough.
The more she made progress in the world the more he felt useless by comparison. He no longer felt pleasure in his role as her teacher and mentor because in some ways she had outstripped him.
She was much steadier.
He would find himself leaving the house on Saturdays in his usual way with nothing to do, no-one to meet. After a few pints in a good country pub he'd sit in his car in one of their favourite places and write to her before surprising Jane by getting home early. He missed Ruth a good deal.
She had been away a long time. He wasn't given to depression, his disposition was generally buoyant, but he had been spending more time with Paul and with other male drinking companions to help ease a certain degree of melancholy. The pressure was worse at college too, things were tightening up all round. But the more he gave in to the consolation of excessive drinking the harder he found it to function at work. And if he found his day hard and taxing he would inevitably seek the usual relief in the evening.
So he wanted this holiday to be just right, just perfect. He wanted Ruth to come back to him at the end of her first year and once more be the stabilizing influence in his life.
They had arranged to meet at a pub which was way out of the city but on a bus route because she wouldn't have a car. They hadn't wanted to meet in the car park for their first meeting, preferring somewhere with the right scenery in the background for this very special cameo which would be called either, "The Homecoming" or "Meeting Again", Julian hadn't yet decided which.
The day was rather overcast for the time of year, a bit chilly, but he hoped this would be one of those occasions when events would upstage the weather and the fact of cold or grey, snow or rain would not be noticed.
He pulled into the pub car park and looked at his watch to see that he was on time. It was pathologically impossible for him ever to be late or early, he was always on time whatever the occasion. It was his sixth sense. Ruth's sixth sense was always to know instinctively what her trolley-load of shopping was going to add up to in the supermarket. He smiled to himself as he recalled their conversation.
With butterflies in his gut he looked around the pub and found her not to be there so he bought a pint of Best and went out into the garden. And there she was. Looking the same, but different.
"Well, hello."
He put down his glass and sat astride the bench facing her. She smiled broadly and so did he and they tentatively embraced.
"How are you?"
"Jet-lagged," she said. "What about you?"
"You know I can never answer that question." He smiled. "I think it's getting better."
"You look different," she said. "That's a new jumper." He was wearing a grey track suit top that made him look extra fit.
"Yes. Jane chose it. She orders things out of a catalogue. Quite successful isn't it."
He took a drink. "God, it's good to see you. You look well."
"It's been dreadful. But it's better being in San Francisco. And it's so much better without Daniel to worry about. You know, there is a lot you would like about California - it might suit you - it's like the Mediterranean without the language problem."
"I thought you said there was a language problem? You said no-one understood a word you say, nor you them?"
"Well, yes that's true - but you just have to give it time. If you're not under the pressure of work it's like Lotus-land. I'm going to dedicate this week to persuading you to come back and live with me forever."
He couldn't stop smiling, "Oh you know I'm too British for America."
Quickly the tension lifted and they began to revel in each other's company as they never had before. But now business took over because they had to get off to Wales and find somewhere to stay else they really would have to sleep in the little tent.
Happily, laughing and jesting, they left the pub and set off. Ruth told him about how good it had been to arrive home on Daniel's birthday, about how she'd actually missed the naughty child and felt somewhat bad about leaving again so soon. And Julian told her of his reservations about leaving Jane, and speculated on whether or not she actually knew on some level that Ruth Paige was back in town.
They didn't stop until they got to Monmouth. After lunch, they bought a book from W.H. Smiths listing all the Welsh cottages for rent and phoned a few of the nearer ones which sounded good.
They found one, as luck would have it, in just the right depth of countryside and at the top of just the right sized hill with a view of open fields filled with sheep and newly-born spring lambs. It was idyllic.
It was an old stone cottage and well-worn, but it was the first time they had ever played house together and so right from the first moment they identified with it as though it were their own. Ruth shopped for provisions and Julian tended to the bar. They behaved as they were used to behaving in a domestic environment but with none of the familiar results. It was like a dream in that respect.
On their first night they both slept like babes, but by the second night "real life had taken over". They couldn't manage to just dwell happily in the present because there was too much left over from the past 8 months and, as well as that, the future presented itself as a giant obstacle so big it had to be discussed.
In the middle of the night Ruth woke up in a state of panic and had to go off and find one of the little yellow pills the American Doctor had given her along with a warning that if she took many of them it would mark the beginning of the end.
Next morning they were both edgy, divided between the need to get a fix on future plans and the need to forget everything except each other and the here and now. The problem was exemplified when they went out for a long walk by the River Wye and Julian couldn't stop himself from striding on ahead.
"Wait!" she shouted, "Where are you going?"
"Sorry," he replied and waited. And then when she caught up off he'd go again, chasing the future for dear life in the fear that it might get away. Or possibly chasing his next pint.
Daily sweats and shakes were routine now before the first pint. He couldn't settle or find any peace until he'd taken a drink. But they spent one highly entertaining morning in a small pub near Symonds Yat watching the locals come in one by one. And as Julian read his paper Ruth enjoyed watching a whole spectrum of eccentric characters and felt like the member of an audience at the theatre.
Each evening spread out in front of them "like a patient etherised upon a table" and they found they were only equipped for dining and loving. Unlike ordinary couples they had never been to the cinema or the theatre or to a concert together, they had never wanted to do anything which would distract them from each other; and the long evenings afforded perhaps too much time for wine and pleasures of the flesh.
Ruth's balance of mind teetered precariously between her obligation in the States and her obligation to her family, and her position at the moment supported neither one. She had dared to hope she would find Julian a changed man now more ready to take a courageous leap into the future with her to demonstrate his love. She had hoped for a more sober man ready to reveal the courage of his convictions and choose to go one way or the other. But instead she found he was more fragmented and divided than ever before, struggling to retain and balance the increasingly cumbersome elements of his life. He consistently maintained that he believed in what he was doing.
Towards the end of their week she began to feel calmer as the time approached to dive back into the flow. But Julian became worse. As they finished their picnic in front of the coal fire one evening, she watched from her chair as he crawled about on his hands and knees like an infant, drunk and oblivious, too weak to confront a choice or make a decision, and finally able only to put his head in her lap and express sadness for all the pain inherent in mere living and for the impossible corner into which he had drawn himself.
He longed to be with Ruth; but he couldn't leave his family. He knew he would lose her unless he did something, but there was nothing he could do. And when they said goodbye at the end of the week everything was as unresolved as it always had been.
He slammed shut the boot to make his point, and with a lot of growling and muttering marched back into the house. He was certainly putting on a good show this time, he was almost convinced himself.
Huffing and puffing at the unreasonableness of some women he picked out a few items of cutlery, a mug and a plate, two glasses, some kitchen towel, packed them into the box containing the calor gas stove and swept past her again back to the boot.
The act was a necessary part of the ritual. In order that he might be allowed to go she had to truly believe it was a case of "man needing to be alone in nature away from family"; rather than "man needing to take off with mistress in nature away from family". So it was his moral responsibility to be convincing and give her no cause for suspicion or anxiety.
"I will phone you every evening around 6.00pm - I'll reverse the charges," he used his most patient tone of voice, "and I will be back at the end of the week bursting with renewed life and vigour." He kissed her peremptorily on her unmoved cheek ignoring the ever-questioning look and went back to counting the tent-pegs.
Realising he was about to disappear for good Jane dispensed with the "attack/accuse" mode and as a final gambit moved into "sad, helpless and adorable" in a last-ditch attempt to hang onto him before she rose as usual to the more seemly brave-front attitude of "I'll cope, have a good time, and we'll look forward to having you back" which he needed to see and hear in order to feel all right about leaving.
He had made an especially big fuss about the tent this time as a foil, because he and Ruth had decided to rent a cottage. They planned to share a whole week in South Wales and Jules had been nervous about it now for nearly two months.
Right up to the day she left for the States he made it clear he wanted her to stay. But he'd known it was an unfair request because he could offer her nothing. Nothing, that is, other than the continuance of what they already had. And he could see this wasn't enough.
The more she made progress in the world the more he felt useless by comparison. He no longer felt pleasure in his role as her teacher and mentor because in some ways she had outstripped him.
She was much steadier.
He would find himself leaving the house on Saturdays in his usual way with nothing to do, no-one to meet. After a few pints in a good country pub he'd sit in his car in one of their favourite places and write to her before surprising Jane by getting home early. He missed Ruth a good deal.
She had been away a long time. He wasn't given to depression, his disposition was generally buoyant, but he had been spending more time with Paul and with other male drinking companions to help ease a certain degree of melancholy. The pressure was worse at college too, things were tightening up all round. But the more he gave in to the consolation of excessive drinking the harder he found it to function at work. And if he found his day hard and taxing he would inevitably seek the usual relief in the evening.
So he wanted this holiday to be just right, just perfect. He wanted Ruth to come back to him at the end of her first year and once more be the stabilizing influence in his life.
They had arranged to meet at a pub which was way out of the city but on a bus route because she wouldn't have a car. They hadn't wanted to meet in the car park for their first meeting, preferring somewhere with the right scenery in the background for this very special cameo which would be called either, "The Homecoming" or "Meeting Again", Julian hadn't yet decided which.
The day was rather overcast for the time of year, a bit chilly, but he hoped this would be one of those occasions when events would upstage the weather and the fact of cold or grey, snow or rain would not be noticed.
He pulled into the pub car park and looked at his watch to see that he was on time. It was pathologically impossible for him ever to be late or early, he was always on time whatever the occasion. It was his sixth sense. Ruth's sixth sense was always to know instinctively what her trolley-load of shopping was going to add up to in the supermarket. He smiled to himself as he recalled their conversation.
With butterflies in his gut he looked around the pub and found her not to be there so he bought a pint of Best and went out into the garden. And there she was. Looking the same, but different.
"Well, hello."
He put down his glass and sat astride the bench facing her. She smiled broadly and so did he and they tentatively embraced.
"How are you?"
"Jet-lagged," she said. "What about you?"
"You know I can never answer that question." He smiled. "I think it's getting better."
"You look different," she said. "That's a new jumper." He was wearing a grey track suit top that made him look extra fit.
"Yes. Jane chose it. She orders things out of a catalogue. Quite successful isn't it."
He took a drink. "God, it's good to see you. You look well."
"It's been dreadful. But it's better being in San Francisco. And it's so much better without Daniel to worry about. You know, there is a lot you would like about California - it might suit you - it's like the Mediterranean without the language problem."
"I thought you said there was a language problem? You said no-one understood a word you say, nor you them?"
"Well, yes that's true - but you just have to give it time. If you're not under the pressure of work it's like Lotus-land. I'm going to dedicate this week to persuading you to come back and live with me forever."
He couldn't stop smiling, "Oh you know I'm too British for America."
Quickly the tension lifted and they began to revel in each other's company as they never had before. But now business took over because they had to get off to Wales and find somewhere to stay else they really would have to sleep in the little tent.
Happily, laughing and jesting, they left the pub and set off. Ruth told him about how good it had been to arrive home on Daniel's birthday, about how she'd actually missed the naughty child and felt somewhat bad about leaving again so soon. And Julian told her of his reservations about leaving Jane, and speculated on whether or not she actually knew on some level that Ruth Paige was back in town.
They didn't stop until they got to Monmouth. After lunch, they bought a book from W.H. Smiths listing all the Welsh cottages for rent and phoned a few of the nearer ones which sounded good.
They found one, as luck would have it, in just the right depth of countryside and at the top of just the right sized hill with a view of open fields filled with sheep and newly-born spring lambs. It was idyllic.
It was an old stone cottage and well-worn, but it was the first time they had ever played house together and so right from the first moment they identified with it as though it were their own. Ruth shopped for provisions and Julian tended to the bar. They behaved as they were used to behaving in a domestic environment but with none of the familiar results. It was like a dream in that respect.
On their first night they both slept like babes, but by the second night "real life had taken over". They couldn't manage to just dwell happily in the present because there was too much left over from the past 8 months and, as well as that, the future presented itself as a giant obstacle so big it had to be discussed.
In the middle of the night Ruth woke up in a state of panic and had to go off and find one of the little yellow pills the American Doctor had given her along with a warning that if she took many of them it would mark the beginning of the end.
Next morning they were both edgy, divided between the need to get a fix on future plans and the need to forget everything except each other and the here and now. The problem was exemplified when they went out for a long walk by the River Wye and Julian couldn't stop himself from striding on ahead.
"Wait!" she shouted, "Where are you going?"
"Sorry," he replied and waited. And then when she caught up off he'd go again, chasing the future for dear life in the fear that it might get away. Or possibly chasing his next pint.
Daily sweats and shakes were routine now before the first pint. He couldn't settle or find any peace until he'd taken a drink. But they spent one highly entertaining morning in a small pub near Symonds Yat watching the locals come in one by one. And as Julian read his paper Ruth enjoyed watching a whole spectrum of eccentric characters and felt like the member of an audience at the theatre.
Each evening spread out in front of them "like a patient etherised upon a table" and they found they were only equipped for dining and loving. Unlike ordinary couples they had never been to the cinema or the theatre or to a concert together, they had never wanted to do anything which would distract them from each other; and the long evenings afforded perhaps too much time for wine and pleasures of the flesh.
Ruth's balance of mind teetered precariously between her obligation in the States and her obligation to her family, and her position at the moment supported neither one. She had dared to hope she would find Julian a changed man now more ready to take a courageous leap into the future with her to demonstrate his love. She had hoped for a more sober man ready to reveal the courage of his convictions and choose to go one way or the other. But instead she found he was more fragmented and divided than ever before, struggling to retain and balance the increasingly cumbersome elements of his life. He consistently maintained that he believed in what he was doing.
Towards the end of their week she began to feel calmer as the time approached to dive back into the flow. But Julian became worse. As they finished their picnic in front of the coal fire one evening, she watched from her chair as he crawled about on his hands and knees like an infant, drunk and oblivious, too weak to confront a choice or make a decision, and finally able only to put his head in her lap and express sadness for all the pain inherent in mere living and for the impossible corner into which he had drawn himself.
He longed to be with Ruth; but he couldn't leave his family. He knew he would lose her unless he did something, but there was nothing he could do. And when they said goodbye at the end of the week everything was as unresolved as it always had been.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
26 ~ posts from 1984/5
”Home, Tuesday, December 18th, 10.30am”
What a treat to speak with you yesterday. I seized the opportunity on one of the few, brief occasions when Joanne has been out of the house in recent weeks. After the call I went to the shops myself. On my return, Jo quietly handed me the card I had left by the phone with your address and telephone number on it, saying: "You should be more careful. I bet that cost a lot of money." I presented what I hoped seemed a calm exterior and, in accepting it, murmured, "Not necessarily." 'Is the old touch disappearing?' he asks himself.
Well, Jo is back to work at last. She has been away from work for nearly 3 weeks, a record by miles. She wasn't really better yesterday, so I hope she is fit enough to last out the final week of term. She has lost her confidence quite a bit. It is very pleasant here. For a start it's great to have the house quiet again. It is another of those crisp, sunny days following an early frost (only the second that we've had). The sky is creamy blue. At one o'clock Allan requires me to take him on a pub crawl to distribute Christmas presents.
Your plan to come over in April is an exciting prospect. Do please confirm your plans as soon as you can. I'm very proud of you. Even if you had decided to return at Christmas, you would have achieved something positive. But now I think that if you can survive until June it will be the correct decision from many points of view, despite the mutual sacrifice involved.
”College” Wednesday 19th December: 10.30am”
Such perversity. Here I am sitting in my hut in Bognor, sipping Perrier water from the Victorian glass you gave to me, when I'm on holiday. The difficulty is in the adjustment. When the discipline is imposed by external demands it may not be easy but it does cope with time. So today, after yesterday's relative decadence, I forced myself to come in to do some "finishing off" and some administrative preparation for next term.
”Home: Thursday 20st December: 10.15am”
I'm sitting at my desk, having completed the housework and feeling very hung-over. I'm so shaky that I must have a lager to help me gain greater calligraphic steadiness! Slipping back into the bad old ways again. Thank you for your letter. You say at the end: "This has not been a good letter, please be understanding." Believe me, I am. It was at least an honest letter. I sympathise desperately for you in your current situation. Your director does appear to be behaving dreadfully badly. I ask the question "Why?" do you think?
If Dan is keen to return home with Tony, then I suppose that must be for the best. I must remember not to view your marriage according to conventional criteria. Benedict and I get on all right. He is friendly but distant. I have come to be the same with him. I sometimes feel a little guilty that I perhaps neglected him in his formative years in the early stages of our affair. I mean, I hardly ever took him to the pictures on a Saturday. That sort of thing. But he's a nice lad and he has lots of enthusiasms and some talent....
***
”Home, Friday, 21st December, 10.30pm”
Is this the shortest day? I am not sure. Also, in a sense, I am probably "pissed". Please forgive the impropriety to which, recently, you may not have been subjected. I am sloshed and out of hand. I have been nasty within my household. I am not a nice person, etc, etc, etc. I want briefly to try and express myself at a level which I don't think I have allowed myself to do before, since you left our island shores. I am totally disarrayed by your absence. I have tried over the months, to correspond with you in a way to give you a sense of continuance in your absence. It has seemed necessary to me that I should somehow convey a sort of reliable strength for you. Right now, quite simply, I am terribly tired and missing you dreadfully. It probably won't matter to you that I am weakening momentarily (hopefully) in this respect. I love you. I want you. I understand your recent letters. I wish you were here with me. I'm sorry if this start may not imbue you with much confidence. Actually, it should. Understand me, in the above, as I have understood you, occasionally. Next, understand that I am (I have to admit) totally plastered. Finally, know, beyond all doubt that I love you and I always will. I am finding it extremely difficult to keep my writing on these lines. Neverthess, (sic) I hope you still love me, (as I love you. Whoops!)
”The Old Cross: Saturday 22nd December 10.15am”
Wow! I was well away wasn't I. But I'll let it stand as part of the record. Your lover is now in moderate control again, steadying his nervous state before encountering the formidable Mary Legge, to whom I am handing over my N.A.T.E. responsibilities; and then braving the crowds of Chichester. It is so busy. I'm sorry about the first page. Don't let it worry you. It is a testament of my love for you, however drunken. I endorse it now, in relative sobriety (half a pint of bitter so far). I must be careful after this not to consume too much. The police are putting people in prison for up to 28 days now, in certain cases, to set an example. I shall take the Selsey road from Donnington and work my way through to Clappers Lane. But there is no way I could cope with shopping here in these conditions with less than a two pint preparation.....
***
”Leics: Sunday, December 30th: 5.30”
A stolen moment. I will try to recapture the salient features of the past week. After I last put pen to paper, as far as I can recall the next 2 days were quiet and industrious, preparation for the festive occasion and subsequent holiday. Christmas day was a replica of last year except it was more difficult to focus any of my thoughts on you. There was an abortive telephone call at about 9.20am when the children were opening their presents. I imagine that it emanated from you, very early on your Christmas morning? Paul came round at about 11.00 and, after a few drinks, we went round to BP's house for more drinks. Back here for pre-prandials. Then a curiously subdued lunch, or Christmas Dinner, of Roast Beef with all the trimmings accompanied by a good Rioja. Then a trifle and cheese, followed by Calvados and coffee. Paul left at tea time. I then slowly drank myself insensible (Scotch) with other variants of food and drink in front of TV and a log fire with my family around me. It appears, from subsequent reports, however, that I was neither uncivil nor ill-humoured.
Boxing Day brought a gigantic hangover. At (I have just been discovered: it doesn't make much sense to continue, as I have had to be defensive-aggressive about being "so rudely interrupted". I'll continue when I can if the foregoing is not stolen and/or destroyed from wherever I attempt to secrete it).
”Suffolk; Bed. Tuesday 1st January, 10.30am”
Arrived here at Bella and Frank's yesterday. Had game pie and claret and saw the New Year in with a lot of Suffolk gypsies at the Nag's Head. I am writing this with Jo's cognisance. There is an hour before "social life" needs to begin. Her "discovery" of me writing to you prompted subsequent (profitable) discussion. I don't feel, in fairness, that I can indulge at this stage, but Jo realises that I need "a little space" to reflect and express. Probably the most sensible way to proceed will be to keep you briefly in touch with my "movements".... (All 3 have just gone out for a walk. I'm probably in the Dog House but who cares. Joanne was certainly, probably justifiably sarcastic, on her departure).
Anyway - writing to you is such a tonic - (a rainstorm has just begun. I feel a mean and wicked triumph at being decadently cocooned in a warm, sumptuous bed while they must be taking shelter from the vicious elements. Everything, however, has its price. It will have to be paid, in this case, with a subsequent display on my part of sympathy, concern and bonhomie. If this letter should be winkled out, I am sure that it will stand no chance of reaching you!)..... We have had (basically) a good week's holiday from home. Tony will be with you as I write. Jo's back. I love you.
In fact, false alarm. That was the next door neighbour's car returning from work. I'll try to, swiftly, keep you up to date: We arrived at Sean's on Thursday. He had Jane have bottomless supplies of elderberry wine which they were dispensing, mulled. Sean got very drunk, made amatory overtures to Jo at a certain stage, during the process of which he fell over an electric fire and fused the electricity. It was actually very funny.....
”Home”: Sunday 6th January: 11.45am
We arrived back yesterday. My term starts creaking erratically into action from the 7th. Woke up this morning to 3" of snow. It's still flecking. Allan is coming to lunch (Twelfth Night) for the last of our festive occasions before the lean months leading to spring. We've also run out of money. The news that I haven't told you is of our 3 days in Suffolk with Frank and Bella. Bella's "condition" improved after our arrival. It's very uncertain with her the distribution of psychosomatic elements. She is a severe diabetic. She tends to play on that fact. She also gets very anxious. She sees a psychiatrist once a week. I think she has outgrown her "infatuation" with me. Anyway, the 3 days were very relaxing, until the last evening, when she messed things up a bit. I would elaborate, but there isn't really time now. I went for 2 walks with Frank. He's a very nice man, kind and intelligent....sorry this has been so fragmentary. It may, however, afford you some imaginative leaps.
I am sitting at my desk with a programme of Debussy piano music. Outside my window is a Winter Wonderland: snow everywhere, snowflakes falling against a leaden sky. I have noticed the sudden dramatic divergence between SF temperatures and ours in the daily papers.
”The Gribble, Wednesday 9th January: 11:11am”
Isn't it strange to think that just over a year ago, we would often find almost unbearable a separation and gap of 5 days and 7 miles; now we tolerate a space of 5 months and 6,000 miles! I have just arrived here after spending a couple of hours at college making preparations for the coming term. There is 2 inches of more or less virgin snow in the college car park. Paul will arrive in due course and then we have to go on to the other site for the staff meeting and academic assemblies. A few pints might, however, shake our resolve!
We shall be away at Easter between 3rd - 9th April. I shall not mention your return to Jo, unless you advise me to. She still fluctuates between considerable extremes of wanting to know as much as possible even to the extent of meeting John Smith (and even sometimes, you!) on the one hand, to obliterating you from her mind, on the other. It would, in any case, be a wonderful (daunting/poignant?) bonus for us to meet - even if only briefly - on 2 or 3 occasions. I am sure that I would appear transparently elated under Joanne's scrutinising gaze. I'm so out of practice!
I have my last free day tomorrow, apart from the weekend. Remember how you used, sometimes, to try to persuade me that my professional commitments were relatively insignificant, and here you are now adhering to a most assiduous and diligent routine, eschewing (I hope) the world of passion and emotion. I wonder how the future will be......?
”Home: Thursday 10th January: 3.30”
Joanne has just gone out to the Co-op to do the weekly shop. This morning we walked up to ”The Old House At Home” and did some talking about "Life". Basically, I think, it was valuable, human and productive. It is unlikely to occur again in civilised and relaxed circumstances for quite some time.
I suppose that right now, Tony's visitation will be approaching its end, and that he and Dan will be preparing for departure, and you for their absence. I look forward with a sort of diffident fascination to your account of the New Year period of reunion. It will be of great interest also to hear about the Smiths and, of course, I shall be very concerned to hear about the fate of the little twin and how Lou is coping.
Paul and I did weaken yesterday. Naughty boys. We went back to his place and drank a few scotches. But there was a wonderful sense of anarchy in by-passing what would have been, inevitably, a stodgy and depressing initiation to the prospects for 1985. A thaw (literal) has begun. But there is a general anticipation of a renewal of cold weather and more snow by the weekend. I will send you any relevant articles from the local press (I wonder whether that will be duplicating the sort of thing your mother does?). (Well, time - I think - for my usual bracketed farewell. I wonder when your new term begins?
Outside my window the bungaloid world is held in an iron grip of white and grey. I suppose that this was never a particularly "fruitful" time for us. I'll continue on Saturday when spring will be closer. I love you).
”The Royal Oak, Saturday 12th January: 12.00am”
Here I am again. I slept in until 10.00am today following the recently unaccustomed experience of WORK at College and having watched a very good late night film: "Americana" (with David Carradine). Well, the term is under way. My programme this time includes:
”Modernism” (contd): Brecht, Chekov, Beckett, Larkin; ”Romantic Themes” (contd): Keats, Tennyson, Yeats, Emily Bronte; ”Creativity and Criticism” (contd); ”Second Teaching Strength” (English for Secondary Age Range non-specialists; P.G.C.E. Secondary Age Range Course (inc. 5 students in schools); ”World and Image” (2nd year of the B.A. Related Arts degree).
I think that's all. I'm going to "have my work cut out" given that there is a great deal of marking and a C.N.A.A. visitation for the Related Arts in February. What trivial detail can I summon up? I have begun to "inherit" items of clothing from Ben! Yesterday, Jo was doing a clear-up and produced an anorak, a pair of boots, pair of shoes, pair of trainers. Rather pleasing as I tend to scrimp my own needs in the light of Jo's spending on herself and the children. (I am not accusing her of extravagance).
I put on about 5lbs weight over the Christmas vacation. I only weigh myself very occasionally, usually at beginning and ending occasions. I seem to remember, however, that you were not averse to the little bit of extra weightiness?! I wonder what you look like now? Maybe you can send me a picture or two soon? Remember my likings when you attend to your hair. It has to be the one physical feature of a person that is significantly alterable (apart from Californian style face-lifts, etc!)
”Home, Sunday 13th January: 8.30pm”
All the family tense/alert with the corporate expectation of individual destinies at work once more tomorrow. Ben was back for the whole of last week, and I went 3 days out of 5. For the others, it's back with a shock tomorrow. Talking about hair, as I was, Jo gave me a short back and sides this evening. But I promise you a flowing mane of ivory and ebony when you return - if you so wish. This has been a stolen moment; I must go down for supper now. My love.
”Home, Monday 14th January: 9.00am”
Another brief note before leaving for college. All the others have gone. There is a light, gentle fall of snow at present. Over the weekend, I discovered/confirmed (without prying) that Joanne has been engaging in a regular, consistent correspondence with Frank. This led to further "helpful" discussion. It also helps to alleviate for me the uneasiness sometimes attendant upon my writing to you, especially as - of course - it now has to be a secret I have to keep, not also from Bella but also from Frank! It really is quite funny from certain angles!
”Home: late”
Do you realise that 6 months have passed since we looked at one another, listened to or heard one another, touched, kissed, smelt or tasted one another? And longer still since we lay, somewhere, happily and easily together? The snow is falling again, graciously forbidding such indulgent memories. Stirrings and coughings around the house prick my uneasy and tiring conscience. Trust, reality, truth and dream, blur. But only for the moment. Certainty will wake with me in the morning, stir me to organise my mixed convictions. I love you.
”Home, Thursday 17th January, 11.00am”
I am sitting at my desk in "complacent" (or "in vacant and in pensive mood" as Wordsworth would have it) state of being, sipping a slightly laced coffee, while outside my window stands and lies a still, cold, white and silent world. A violent sneeze has just ruffled the edges of that complacency. Since I have no news, I shall fall back on the time-honoured British tradition of talking about the weather.
I have just returned from a brief excursion to the shops. Two inches of snow on the ground and a biting wind. The sky above the sea was (is) ominously grey. I don't think that I have ever seen so many seagulls circling the sky in Wittering. Deprived of and looking for scraps of food I suppose. If it is going to be bad weather, quite selfishly I hope that it will be really bad so that it will be impossible to get to work tomorrow and the kids can enjoy a genuine dose of winter snow (very rare here) over an extended weekend.
Having said that, I feel starved of correspondence from you which will not reach me if the Birdham Straight becomes blocked. There has just been a postal delivery - my quarterly treat from the Classical Selection Club. This time I chose Mahler's "Das Lied Von Der Erde" ("The Song of the Earth"). I shall look forward to listening to that later.
Well, I really have dried up for the moment! Without stimulus from you my Muse wanes. The first 3 days of term went well. I was in good Lecturer form and not too fraught. I shall stay in for lunch today - grill myself a pizza and have a couple of glasses of white wine. We went "into the red" again yesterday, but who cares. I have "expectations!"
Did you see that Peter Lawford died recently - from drink - Vodka? (I am missing you. But you are fading. Give me some palpable reminder of you soon, please. I must light a fire and do some washing up. Do you still feel within you the supremacy of us and picnics? Do you still retain the very special nature of our relationship, and that West Sussex picnics may perhaps afford us the highest form of happiness on earth? The grey is intensifying. The wind is getting sharper. The gulls are fewer, but their cries are intensive, hysterical. Don't think me mad. I am, but I want you to share such moments with me....)
”Home, Monday 21st January: 3.00pm”
What a marvellous Monday! You have rung me twice. I was beginning to become rather depressed. Anything over about 12 days begins to register. Today there has been a big thaw and a steady light downfall of rain. During the snowy period I took disproportionate pleasure in sloping around in the extremely comfortable ski-boots which we bought for Ben's holiday last year...
”The Fox, 24th January: 12.00am”
My nerves are taking a beating! Scary things have been happening. I have just been into school. This was my first student-visit of the Spring Term. I always feel uneasy when I make my initial visits. But, on this occasion, I felt absolutely terrified. I made the mistake of accepting the offer of a cup of coffee. Shortly after that I met BJ. He has a very pleasant manner and was welcoming. I was relieved, however, to complete the task. The student is very suited to the ambience.
This afternoon I have to visit another school. Tomorrow I have C.N.A.A. Visitation Meetings..... I talked to John yesterday for the first time since his return from SF. I am glad you are settled in to your new apartment in the city. He didn't appear to think that Tony's visit had been an unequivocal success. If his judgement is correct, I am very sorry. You were, I think, quite looking forward to his arrival and referred to him as something like a "potential ally."
By the time you receive this it will be FEBRUARY. The snow has all gone. As I drove to school this morning an iron frost lay all over the flat, furrowed fields. I saw 4 kestrels poised, fixed aloft the topmost branches of skeletal trees. You could have been with me, a brief walk in prospect, to be followed by settlement in some niche or coign where food, beer and warmth can be found in appropriate balance.
Outside, a frozen world. (I must come back to the real world, which happens to be at the moment in a Sussex pub. I must eat my sandwich, finish my drink and then "Let us go and make our visit". Je t'aime).
”Home: Monday 28th January : 2.45pm”
Hints of spring on a late January day. Gentle birdsong. A low sun with long shadows. Sound of a continuous surge on the shore at high tide. I have just returned from college - Paul Larkin ("Wedding Wind") and Paul Braithwaite (Lavant). Still no letter for me - nearly a month, but I do know that one must arrive any day now.
”Home: 31st January: 12.45am”
......I have poured myself a pre-prandial lager ....I shouldn't be so indulgent really. I had set today aside to construct a series of main lectures that I have to give, starting next Friday, on a newly devised course, which I was half responsible for writing... My family seems jinxed financially, doesn't it? Both grandparents lost small fortunes. My Great Uncle changed his will (previously in my father and his sisters' favour) when his wife died and he married, to everybody's amazement again. She died last year, leaving one sixth of £54,000 to me. But this tenant who can't, of course, be forced to move is stubbornly refusing to do so....It would have been nice, though, if my father had "done the right thing" eight years ago, wouldn't it?
Well, we can start to turn our thoughts to your return now. When that transpires it will not be easy - maybe a lot more difficult than before. There has been, inevitably I suppose, greater consolidation within my marriage during your absence. The family has been much more together and Joanne and I have spent more time with each other. She has made strenuous efforts to get me to go walking on the Downs with her. I am sure that that is natural and not unfair and she has a genuine desire to paint and draw such places. She fell in love with Graffham. But I have felt a determined, if uncomfortable, resistance to such pressures.
There are many places that I feel are sacrosanct to us. I would hate to go, with anyone else other than you, in a car up the lane to Didling Church, for example, and then climb the path through the woods and then on and up the steep hillside. Tell me about how you think of this, please. Am I misguided and wrong, do you think, to feel and act this way? The spring will soon be here, and I shall need to know how to handle it. I want Joanne to enjoy her life and be fulfilled. And, obviously, I could avoid our most secret places. But if I start a process which forms new patterns, they may be even more difficult to depart from in the summer...
***
”Home, Thursday February 7th 10.00am”
It is a miserable day and I'm feeling miserable too. I should be feeling good as I have a free day to myself. But I don't. I've just returned from the bank (money problems) in sleety rain and a sharp north easterly wind. My stomach has been playing up again during the last week or so. I still have not written the lecture that is to be the start of a series tomorrow. And it seems aeons since I heard from you. In fact it's only 8 days.
Just recently there have been misleading signs of spring. Bulbs have started to appear. The dawn choruses have returned. Catkins hang from boughs. We had, the day before yesterday, one of those days when a characteristic creamy film of sunshine lies upon all surfaces, casting mild shadows. It has been pleasant to drive about independently. But it is a flat stage of the year. Admittedly, it probably marks the halfway point of your absence. But to tick over for an equivalent period of time seems a dreadfully bleak and depressing prospect. And what have we to look forward to then?
In my last letter I referred, I think, to Jo's attitude. And what about your position? You won't want to (and mustn't) return to waste your life on me. Having tested change for so long a time (albeit more distinctively for you) will either of us be content to carry on more or less where we left off and in more or less the same way? I'm sorry to launch this letter in such a melancholy fit. But the problems are real. Are they soluble? We shall need to anticipate them. Tell me what you think. I love you.
”Same day: 12.30”
Well, I feel a little better now. I have got well into the task (of preparing the lecture). It's all in my head, and it's just a question of concentrating on ordering it onto paper. I have the afternoon and evening free to achieve that.
Yesterday, Christopher Fry (the dramatist) delivered a talk to the ”Creativity and Criticism” group. In his late seventies, he spoke for nearly an hour, elegantly and eloquently. He stood throughout, firm and straight. He is a very nice man with a considerable twinkle in his eye. But I have never appreciated his work, and I found his talk, too, finally, empty of substance: all glittering style.... I don't see much chance of communicating with you for another week. That will mean a fortnight between letters from me. But the last one was a monster, wasn't it? With my love.
”The Nag's Head. Saturday 9th February: 12.00 am”
The snow is back. Two inches fell in the night, and it is still falling steadily. Things are looking better than they were on Thursday. That's because I have the respite of the WEEKEND again. My day yesterday was a resounding “success.” I gave a formal talk for an hour on The Language of Criticism (in relation to poetry); then my colleague did the same in respect of art (using slides). After that we held separate seminars on the imagery of Blake.
After lunch - the same division for practical workshops. It was a satisfying day, but good to get over. My stomach had improved, and I enjoyed Scallops au Gratin in the evening.
I am rather disappointed to have received no response from you yet. At least I don't think that you have responded to my last letter. I have been rather confused over it all. I just know that I try to write steadily to give you a picture to latch onto, while your letters are sporadic and fragmentary. Don't the weekends allow you some moments of reflection and commitment to me? I know that your life is very demanding but it shouldn't be that demanding. I cannot believe that in any given week you could not find one hour to shut out the world and commit yourself to total communication with me. I could understand that when Tony was over, but since he left I have only received one exhausted letter, written nearly 3 weeks ago after an even larger gap. I shall probably repent those words early next week when some full and reassuring letter arrives; meanwhile you must try, retrospectively, to understand my frustration.
I dreamed about you last night. Joanne and I had, seemingly, acquired a house on the shores of Pagham Harbour. The garden looked out across the water. To the left was woodland. I was looking out across the view. Jo was in the kitchen below, with a similar scene before her. It was a summer’s day. Robbie was playing in the garden. Suddenly, you climbed over a small rock wall at the bottom of the garden, to the right, with Dan. You waved and beckoned and sat down on the grass. You were sun-tanned. Your hair was curly and almost golden. What I noticed most was that you wore light-green lipstick and eye-shadow! I stayed fixed to the spot, frozen into immobility. Dan and Robbie moved towards one another, to meet. That's about it. Make what you will of it! Have you had any significant dreams recently?
(Paul has just arrived. I'll continue when I can. Love.)
”Home: Tuesday 12th February: 3.30pm)”
All is now sunshine and song (metaphorically). I have just rung you. You will have absorbed my frustration. It has gone. What I (selfishly) miss, on some occasions and periods of time, is the sense of your presence to encourage me and give me hope in life. I think that I am good in my professional life, and quite good in my domestic life, in encouraging others to fulfilment. But, though quite resilient and independent, I am hopeless at encouraging myself. I have tried to be that for you, recently, at long distance. But I have so missed you. Forgive my, perhaps, bludgeoning tones this morning. Interpret the love in them. I am so happy to know that you are to return to Sussex soon. I shall obviously think about it carefully.
(I love you enormously - Robbie's back - Just hearing your voice filled me again with such certainty. I hope it worked the same for you, irrespective of the "rude" awakening. Love, and anticipation.)
”Home: Thursday 14th February, St Valentine's Day: 8.45am”
I am feeling incomparably better than when I started this letter. I have another entirely free day, but this time so much greater expectations. All the family are out. The work pressure is reduced considerably. I can cope with tomorrow's full day this evening (From 11.00am - 2.00pm I am taking the 30 students on a coach to Harting Hill to encourage them to "respond imaginatively to Nature").
The snow is still lying in quite large stretches on top of the Downs. Yesterday I paid my last School Practice visit of the Spring Term. It was below freezing, but the sun was brilliantly clear (remember Pater's Conclusion to ”The Renaissance”?). On the way, I passed through Stoke, Funtington and Westbourne. It brought things back searingly. I have hardly been in that area at all during the past 7 months.
At Lavant, Paul yesterday produced the long-awaited letter. Having spoken to you on the 'phone, I have been able to exercise great will-power. It lies unopened! I preferred the option of reading it with care and consideration, in comfort and relaxation (today), to scurrying through it furtively (yesterday). First I am going to the shops for certain necessaries. On my return, I shall indulge myself in reading my first correspondence from you for what seems like months, but is only weeks. That will result in my adding a brief footnote to this letter. (For that purpose, I shall adopt a new Papermate pen. The number of Tempo Ultrafine biros I have expended on Air Mail paper since August is prodigious!).
Your letter, spanning a gap of 3 weeks from the brief utterance on New Year's Day to 22nd Jan, began with a catalogue of pressures experienced. It was formidable and, as I'm sure I must have said, I did, and do, imaginatively understand. Best forgotten as soon as possible. The next stage of the letter was much more optimistic. A sporadic description of your new apartment followed. I don't know what I meant by "Oscar Wilde rules O.K? Down with Boy George." I'm sure it must have meant something extremely witty and subtle to me at the time. I must have been pissed! Presumably it had something to do with your charming Director (and maybe his second mate?). You spoke of the supportive effect of my letter of Dec. 16th and then of your plan to return in mid-June. Small snag - it will coincide with the beginning of my marking of "A" levels. I have to do it in the summer still, to survive financially over the vacation. (Unless, of course, they suddenly resolved the Will).
The last 2 pages refer to my last letter, written just before Christmas, and is full of love and effusiveness and gratitude. Thank you for the outpourings re-read here on a sunny, frozen morning - snow still lying on rooftops and in gardens. And so your letter ends. It was a lovely letter really, and I could not have asked for more in essence. If I have, occasionally, sounded testy - it has had to do with the frustration caused by what seem like excessive gaps in your corresponding. My letters have, I think, tended to be long, regular and, in general, balanced. This I have seen and willingly undertaken as my "role" during this "stage" of our relationship.
Your letters have tended to be much more fragmentary and introspective and written in states of near exhaustion. What I would like between now and June would be to receive, in addition to the above, an occasional letter from you which is expressed without the imposition of any constraints whatsoever. So that you can be reflective and convey the steady centre of yourself - your love, your expectations, your certainties and uncertainties. And I do like "news". I have really missed that since your very early letters. I realise that Christmas and its aftermath was highly uncongenial but it did involve people whom I know or know of. Some knowledge of their thoughts and actions would have been stimulating and valued. (Here endeth the First Lesson. I'm off to the shops now. Then back for the exciting prospect of yesterday's letter!)
”Same day: 11.45am”
Thank you so very much for your long letter. It has exiled all my main concerns. You see, it was the first steady utterance that I had received from you since well before Christmas, a disturbing festival for both of us. It exactly matches my wishes and desires expressed above. Your letter, like this, is quite rightly a mixture of mental and emotional levels, though basically buoyant and purposeful. Remember that we have always regarded it as essential to be as honest to/with one another as we can humanly manage. That is part of the key to our "survival", I am sure.
Time for my solo lunch. Now that I have finished reading your letter, I feel rather sad. I've only had one beer so far. But I'm sure that it's only a temporary phase. Whatever else applies, if these were to be the last words I ever wrote to you and you received from me, as with your letter to me, I know that I will always love you in that unique way that we have so often, so passionately, so poignantly experienced. What I don't know yet is what, if anything, we can do about it to bring happiness, fulfilment and fairness to combine for us all. Please know that I love you, I adore you and I want you. Soon?)
”Home, Saturday 23rd February, 4.30pm”
How chastened you make me feel! Four letters from you since I rang! I am consoled only by the probability that you will have had a long letter from me (commencing in self-pity and concluding with hope and expectation) before you set off on your skiing week tomorrow. Thank you for your Valentine. I received 2 others, almost certainly from my wife and youngest daughter. They received none from me. Joanne received one from another, undivulged, source...
”Home: Monday 25th February: 2.15pm”
What a relief to be home. I woke with a bad hangover this morning. But at last I have some leisure with which to communicate with you. It's a quiet, mild day. Spring seems imminent. Your first letter of the four: a summons to Bath or Somerset somewhere "between when your term ends and when Jo's does." That was nice. I'll defer treatment of that excitingly significant suggestion for the moment.
You then explain your recent state of mind and why you hadn't been able to get around to writing. It makes me feel bad about having rung you, when re-reading this. But it was my love which was calling, in whatever form it took. The next part of the letter expresses doubts as to the future of our relationship - a mirror-image almost of what I wrote to you recently..... You ask me to tell you in my next letter about my "hopes and predictions" for "the next 5, 10, 20 years". I don't think hopes and predictions always coincide. It would be a foolish endeavour for me to try to express them and relate them as far as you and I are concerned. What about you? Could you do it with confidence and certainty?
The rest of the letter is more general - a valiant concession to my appeal for more "substance"! Thank you very much for it. It has occupied me for the past hour. (It is 3.25pm - it does not look as if I shall have this in the post until Thursday. It will be MARCH by the time it reaches you. I love you and I miss you and I wish that I could hold you and kiss you again. It is 7 months since we have looked into each other's ”eyes” to seek for meanings there. By the end of this letter I hope that that prospect will be a more feasible reality for us both. Goodbye for now. I adore you as ever.)
”Home: Tuesday 26th February: 9.00am”
...I have to go into college to get some chores done. Then, ”Romantic Themes” (Tennyson and Yeats), one pint and a sandwich at ”The Gribble”, PGCE interviews starting at 1.30pm, PGCE Programme Board at 4.00pm And so goodbye to another day. But it will take us closer to our first meeting in many months. Will that be scary, do you think? Maybe we should think carefully about the initial venue? What will we talk about? What will we do? Idle, but exciting, thoughts. (I must go now. Outside, strangely, most unusually, there is a "foggy, foggy dew". I wish that you were in it and that I could save you from it but, of course, that had repercussions! With my love. Bye).
”Home: Thursday 28th February: 9.00am”
I am feeling temporarily rather depressed this morning. I suppose there is a combination of "reasons" to account for that condition: the students "slammed" the “Creativity and Criticism” course at an evaluation meeting yesterday; I had a bad night; I am still coughing, spluttering and wheezing; it is the third cold and foggy day in a row; I am conscious that the car is beginning to suffer substantial problems and its MOT is due in a month; I am feeling guilty because I am almost certainly going to fail to materialise at a special meeting of the ”Related Arts “ teaching team called by the Director for 4.00; finally it has been a long, hard haul since Christmas, in dreary weather, with no Half-Term break.
”Home: 11.00am”
Things are looking a little better now: the sun has broken through and the world looks a happier place. I have rung college to offer my apologies for absence this afternoon. That has made me feel easier. It's odd how negative existence is for much of the time. Bella just 'phoned. She was at home, in bed with 'flu. She rang to more or less apologise for her part in the chaotic events of the weekend.
In a nutshell: the weekend was beset by multiplying misunderstandings. I had been, and was, preoccupied on Friday night still with the prospect of our meeting so soon. I was also very tired. I must have seemed distant and remote. To add to this, Bella, apparently, had a severe insulin reaction. It seems that I did not express as much concern as I should have done. (I think that she can generate such states at will, at whatever level of consciousness, whenever she feels that she is not receiving enough attention). The essential problem for her, I think, is that ideologically her sympathies lie passionately with Joanne whom she thinks I treat, as she would put it, "like a shit." Yet she is also infatuated/obsessed or whatever with me, still, I think. I thought that she had got over (but it's probably only been suppressed). Clearly she finds the tension of her feelings difficult to cope with when we are all together. It is a pity, because she is a very kind and affectionate person. She adores the children, who have become an important part of her life. She has been consistent in believing that you represent an essential part of my life.
But to respond to your second letter of the (now) five: ....you caution me not to tell anyone about your return. I have only told Paul (I already had). I feel that he deserves my confidence. He has been my constant ally and confident since your departure. He is, basically, extremely trustworthy. Joanne could put difficult pressure on him in my absence. She must, of course, know nothing. The only remotest danger could involve John, should she - if suspicious - ring him, to make friendly contact, as it were. Can you ensure that he is proof against revealing your whereabouts, in such an event? And what if Lou were to answer the 'phone? Sorry to sound so melodramatic. But I do have to protect certain sensibilities as well as interests!
The middle part of the letter "eases" with the course of the day and becomes positively loving by the evening. I appreciate your wish not to have wanted to make a "demand" of me about April. It is not a demand. I shall need a holiday from work, home and family by Easter. Your presence will give me a reason. It will also provide me with a measure of guilt (or do I mean potential shame?). Some things don't change. We must try to minimise that by planning carefully. Will we, do you think, find profound feelings of difficulty in adjustment? In my next letter I'll be much more specific: dates, suggestions, questions, and so on. What a prospect! There will be 5 days in which we could (and, I think, should) meet before having our "break", which I assume will start on the Monday. I think that I should be back by the Friday. I have not discussed this with Jo yet, although she knows of my intention "to go off for a few days after Easter". She said: "It will do you good."
Your letter ends with expectations of bluebells, Byworth, Graffham, Elsted, Bosham Quay and Wildham Woods, and "the thought of touching again" .....I long to be with you again, alone, together.
***
”Home: Monday 4th March, 9.15am”
Today is bright and windy. I can hear the high vigorous tide. Let me put down some dates:
Saturday 30th March: We drive to London for Frank's 50th birthday party
Sunday 31st/Monday 1st April: We return to Wittering
Tuesday 2nd April: You arrive in West Sussex
Wednesday 3rd April: We drive to Suffolk
Saturday 6th April: We drive to Leicestershire
Monday 8th April: We return to Wittering
Monday 15th April: Joanne's Summer Term begins
So our holiday might span the week 15th-19th April. And there is the possibility of our meeting briefly on 2nd April. When we return on the 8th Paul may be away, so we must have a valid means of communication. This must be pondered upon, but swiftly! Time is running out....
”Home: 2.00pm”
I resisted the temptation to lunch in a pub. Instead I returned here, cooked myself bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms, followed by cheese, accompanied by a glass of Valpolicella and a lunchtime concert of piano music by Debussy. (Complacent?)
Now I am at my desk. I have a scotch on the rocks. There is clear winter/spring sunshine. The wind has dropped, but the breeze is nudging sheets on washing-lines. Nearby, a helicopter is throbbing vigilantly. Well, we may meet again within 4 - 5 weeks! You must be getting animated at the idea of returning to England, I imagine. Will you let me know the dates of your “official” spring vacation. This may well be helpful in the event of a difficult or provocative question from Joanne.
She asked me the other day if I intended to spend the time flying to California and back! Also imagine how you ”would have spent the holiday period, so that I can offer a casual response if required. I like the end of your last letter: "Just think, soon we will be talking (so much talking) and touching again. The thought is almost too acute to bear". The notion is reciprocal. We shall probably expire of spontaneous combustion.
I think that I will go and meet Robbie from school now. Such opportunities to encounter her radiant, appreciative smile will not extend beyond July.
The next month will be an exceptional experience for both you and me. Time ticking away. Anticipation. For what? Spring/summer. The nature of our future”? To be together again after 8 or 9 months. And I shall have to attempt to act throughout as if nothing out of the ordinary is in the offing! A challenge indeed, especially when in my cups. But if I'm too sober I might end up by being boring! A fine rope to tread. Anyway, my feelings of the moment are of ”adjustment”. The resolution of our separation should be an extraordinary and significant occasion. I hope that we shall both be equal to it. I ”know” that we will.
I must leave now. Read again Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning", also his "The Anniversarie", both from ”Songs and Sonnets”. I love you very much.)
”Home Tuesday 5th March, 3.00pm”
Next Saturday Benedict will be 17! The following weekend I shall become 45! Carpe diem. Never mind. There are intimations of spring in the air. I saw snowdrops and crocuses today. The sun is shining, but there is still a chill in the air. Let's hope that the weather will be special for your return. Once again, I shall go to meet Robbie. She is still a great joy and consolation in my life. She is an exceptional person and, like Immy, becoming very attractive to the eye. There is still no hint of bitterness or self-absorption in her. What will adolescence do to that I wonder?
Don't decide to live in California forever if you can avoid it. I would miss you too much, even if it turned me into a Yeats, as a result!
Home: Thursday 7th March: 10.30am” ....
We shall have to be very careful (on account of my family's happiness and stability). Joanne, surprisingly, said that she didn't mind whether I went away before or after the end of her holiday when I mentioned it. So it looks as if I could leave earlier. But I think that I would prefer to go at a time when she does not have time and space to sit and speculate. The main thing is that she must suspect nothing. If it came to the very worst I suppose that we would have to adopt a local strategy, meeting daily with perhaps just one night for me away from home. But I think that we deserve more than that! I am not "getting cold feet", just beginning to try to appraise the realities of the situation.
Where for example, do you think that I should say I am going? Joanne may "allow" me to have the car which would be much more convenient and convincing, even if I barely use it, leaving it somewhere fairly nearby. She may say that I can have it only if I go before she returns to work. What melodrama! It must look all very petty from your perspective. But you must put yourself, as best you can, in my position (and Jo's). Underneath the placid exterior, there is a very emotional as well as stubborn person. I have to live with her. I don't want to cause distress to the family, so I shall have to tread very carefully. Homily over.
It's 11:11:11.....I'll end now. This has necessarily been a rather pragmatic letter. The wheels of mighty enterprise are being set in motion - it's all a matter of scale! Remember that I have loved you over 8 years and during your 8 months absence. And will. Always.
***
”Home, Monday 11th March, 11.00am”
...It is bright. There is birdsong. The breezes remain chilly... Last week Jo and I both sat glued to our seats watching a documentary called "The Mistress". She has the advantage of me on such occasions, as she can study my profile and the television at the same time. There was one excruciating moment when one of the women involved said something like: "What a wife should fear the most is correspondence between her husband and his mistress. And the greater the distance, the more dangerous. Things can be said on paper that can have a more enduring and deeper impact than is always achieved in the presence of the other being."
Wow! Anyway, I hope that it doesn't go on much longer. I don't think that I could endure such another autumn, winter, spring. Friday night, as is often the case, I feel rather pleased to be married. Home beckons, after a particularly demanding day. Settling in, relaxing, a pleasant meal (grilled lamb chops). Reasonably civilised conversation, followed by television.
After a Saturday morning lie-in I watched athletics on T.V. Then I decided to wander along to a local jumble sale. I happened upon the best collection of second-hand books that it has been my luck to encounter for several years. I got about 30 Modern First Editions for £2. The batch included a signed, limited (500) volume of poems by Eden Phillpotts, with 8 black and white illustrations by Claude A. Shepperson, R.I. on hand-made paper. Published by Methuen in 1905. That alone must be worth at least £10. Very exciting.
Yesterday was not such a good day. Jo and I snapped and snarled at one another from the word go. I did my best to "keep a low profile". A partial explanation is that "it is the time of the month". One final ”important” point: Jo, yesterday, was ”insisting” that she would prefer it if I went for my "individual" holiday ”early rather than late. I have stalled her on this point, asserting in true-blue Chauvinist manner: "I shall go when I feel like it, and that is the end of the matter." But I would like to know as soon as possible how flexible your arrangements are. If I then, at a fairly late stage, suddenly acquiesced to her wishes it might help to allay her suspicions...I wonder if she has some secret lover up her sleeve. She seems excessively keen to get me off her hands ”before” she gets back to work!
”Same Day: 2.00pm”
I'm at a loose end. I've got loads to do. But I'm ”bored”. I think that it is that I am getting excited about your imminent return. I am beginning to get disinclined to do anything that isn't essential and immediate. As the time grows shorter and shorter before your return the prospect seems to me, ironically, less and less real. It has been, relatively, a long time - 8 months out of 8 years. You could almost have born a child since we last met! I should be feeling joyous with anticipation, but I suppose that I am beginning to feel, also, apprehensive. What will it be like? Will we get the balance right after such a long "rift"?
You were always so much better than me at taking such things in your stride. It was also an area in which you were my mentor. I have missed that guidance and encouragement. What will happen in June, I wonder. The pattern must change. But how? I ”can't” leave my house and home, but the sacrifice of not being able to be with you is often unbearable. One would have thought we should have been able to teach ourselves to get used to and to accept it by now....
(I must achieve something now. Perhaps writing to you is some kind of achievement? I love you very much. Look after yourself).
”Home, Thursday March 14th: 11.11am”
...Did you ring recently? Twice? One, about 10 days ago, at about 3.00am. Joanne was furious. She had only just managed to get off to sleep. The second occasion was last night at about 11.00pm Joanne answered it but it cut off. Strangely and rarely we were talking about you and me at that very moment. Earlier in the evening we had been to watch Robbie play the recorder and sing in the Chichester and District Primary Schools Music Festival. It was a very enjoyable evening. Peter Walsh contributed as one of the few performing adults.
After we had returned and Robbie was abed, we sat and ate Quiche Lorraine washed down with Riesling and watched a programme on Elisabeth Frink, the sculptress. Then, over a nightcap, we had a discussion on the evening's performance, during the course of which I could not resist casually mentioning that Peter Walsh had "arranged a couple of my songs". I subsequently had to satisfy Jo's curiosity, in very broad terms, as to the context in which this phenomenon had occurred! (Mentioning the fact that you had set them to music). I was pleased that she did not, as might have been expected, react at a very personal level. Quite soon she headed the conversation towards speculation about the notion of my writing a book which she could illustrate. (This has been an ambition that has lain dormant for years. But recently, Jo has picked up her Art again, much more positively - largely under Frank's influence.)
(That's all. Just keeping in touch. Shall we always keep in touch, I wonder? I hope so. I love you. Not long to go).
”Home: Monday 18th March: 2.30pm”
Today I pen my last words to you for a considerable time. I have just returned from my last Monday session of the term. It is a lovely day - sunny, with a blue to transparent sky. The easterly breeze still holds a slight chill, however, otherwise I would be writing this in the garden instead of at my desk. Robbie's words in her hand-made birthday card to me were:
“To Dad”
You are forty-five right now,
I don't know why
I don't know how
But all I know is you are sweet
You give me love right off my feet.
Love Robbie
Thank you for your card, the photographs and your letter. I had a good birthday. An above average crop of presents; people must lay greater value on one as the years go by! Your card had a duck and a drake proceeding, parallel, in opposite directions. A setting sun; or was it rising. Bull rushes, mostly still erect. Piscean? Nothing evidently symbolic in your photos, I think, although one can usually manage something if one tries. Why am I becoming prurient?
This morning I went to the bank. "The Will" doesn't seem to be materialising. I borrowed £2,000 against it a year ago, not repaying it, merely paying monthly interest. Also, we need another car and I owe Paul £320. So I am hoping to squeeze about £4,500 out of Mr Morton, the manager. Tomorrow is Budget Day.
To your letter: when we meet you want some serious "straight" talking. I agree with that definitely. But let's have some fun too. You take me to task with such phrases as "well, really!! “Come, come!" and "cop out!" You're probably right but I don't entirely understand what prompted the somewhat satirical edge. Honest. I must be "thick" in my deviousness or devious in my thickness. Whatever happens, when we meet, we must not encourage conflict or criticism. We have both had much to contend with. We owe ourselves warmth, generosity and love. It will be difficult in prospect as the time grows closer. It will, after all, be a crucial experience. But it will be our time. We can make it wonderful....
”In bed: Tuesday 19th March: 8.30am”
With a glass of milk and a wholemeal biscuit. Shortly after I finished writing to you yesterday my stomach started to go to pieces. Obviously I had a "heavy" weekend. I am determined to get in for my last session of the term. I haven't taken a day off for illness, it seems, for years. It's odd that you wrote your last letter in a diminished state and here I am in a similar condition. I must get in shape for April! With my love.
What a treat to speak with you yesterday. I seized the opportunity on one of the few, brief occasions when Joanne has been out of the house in recent weeks. After the call I went to the shops myself. On my return, Jo quietly handed me the card I had left by the phone with your address and telephone number on it, saying: "You should be more careful. I bet that cost a lot of money." I presented what I hoped seemed a calm exterior and, in accepting it, murmured, "Not necessarily." 'Is the old touch disappearing?' he asks himself.
Well, Jo is back to work at last. She has been away from work for nearly 3 weeks, a record by miles. She wasn't really better yesterday, so I hope she is fit enough to last out the final week of term. She has lost her confidence quite a bit. It is very pleasant here. For a start it's great to have the house quiet again. It is another of those crisp, sunny days following an early frost (only the second that we've had). The sky is creamy blue. At one o'clock Allan requires me to take him on a pub crawl to distribute Christmas presents.
Your plan to come over in April is an exciting prospect. Do please confirm your plans as soon as you can. I'm very proud of you. Even if you had decided to return at Christmas, you would have achieved something positive. But now I think that if you can survive until June it will be the correct decision from many points of view, despite the mutual sacrifice involved.
”College” Wednesday 19th December: 10.30am”
Such perversity. Here I am sitting in my hut in Bognor, sipping Perrier water from the Victorian glass you gave to me, when I'm on holiday. The difficulty is in the adjustment. When the discipline is imposed by external demands it may not be easy but it does cope with time. So today, after yesterday's relative decadence, I forced myself to come in to do some "finishing off" and some administrative preparation for next term.
”Home: Thursday 20st December: 10.15am”
I'm sitting at my desk, having completed the housework and feeling very hung-over. I'm so shaky that I must have a lager to help me gain greater calligraphic steadiness! Slipping back into the bad old ways again. Thank you for your letter. You say at the end: "This has not been a good letter, please be understanding." Believe me, I am. It was at least an honest letter. I sympathise desperately for you in your current situation. Your director does appear to be behaving dreadfully badly. I ask the question "Why?" do you think?
If Dan is keen to return home with Tony, then I suppose that must be for the best. I must remember not to view your marriage according to conventional criteria. Benedict and I get on all right. He is friendly but distant. I have come to be the same with him. I sometimes feel a little guilty that I perhaps neglected him in his formative years in the early stages of our affair. I mean, I hardly ever took him to the pictures on a Saturday. That sort of thing. But he's a nice lad and he has lots of enthusiasms and some talent....
***
”Home, Friday, 21st December, 10.30pm”
Is this the shortest day? I am not sure. Also, in a sense, I am probably "pissed". Please forgive the impropriety to which, recently, you may not have been subjected. I am sloshed and out of hand. I have been nasty within my household. I am not a nice person, etc, etc, etc. I want briefly to try and express myself at a level which I don't think I have allowed myself to do before, since you left our island shores. I am totally disarrayed by your absence. I have tried over the months, to correspond with you in a way to give you a sense of continuance in your absence. It has seemed necessary to me that I should somehow convey a sort of reliable strength for you. Right now, quite simply, I am terribly tired and missing you dreadfully. It probably won't matter to you that I am weakening momentarily (hopefully) in this respect. I love you. I want you. I understand your recent letters. I wish you were here with me. I'm sorry if this start may not imbue you with much confidence. Actually, it should. Understand me, in the above, as I have understood you, occasionally. Next, understand that I am (I have to admit) totally plastered. Finally, know, beyond all doubt that I love you and I always will. I am finding it extremely difficult to keep my writing on these lines. Neverthess, (sic) I hope you still love me, (as I love you. Whoops!)
”The Old Cross: Saturday 22nd December 10.15am”
Wow! I was well away wasn't I. But I'll let it stand as part of the record. Your lover is now in moderate control again, steadying his nervous state before encountering the formidable Mary Legge, to whom I am handing over my N.A.T.E. responsibilities; and then braving the crowds of Chichester. It is so busy. I'm sorry about the first page. Don't let it worry you. It is a testament of my love for you, however drunken. I endorse it now, in relative sobriety (half a pint of bitter so far). I must be careful after this not to consume too much. The police are putting people in prison for up to 28 days now, in certain cases, to set an example. I shall take the Selsey road from Donnington and work my way through to Clappers Lane. But there is no way I could cope with shopping here in these conditions with less than a two pint preparation.....
***
”Leics: Sunday, December 30th: 5.30”
A stolen moment. I will try to recapture the salient features of the past week. After I last put pen to paper, as far as I can recall the next 2 days were quiet and industrious, preparation for the festive occasion and subsequent holiday. Christmas day was a replica of last year except it was more difficult to focus any of my thoughts on you. There was an abortive telephone call at about 9.20am when the children were opening their presents. I imagine that it emanated from you, very early on your Christmas morning? Paul came round at about 11.00 and, after a few drinks, we went round to BP's house for more drinks. Back here for pre-prandials. Then a curiously subdued lunch, or Christmas Dinner, of Roast Beef with all the trimmings accompanied by a good Rioja. Then a trifle and cheese, followed by Calvados and coffee. Paul left at tea time. I then slowly drank myself insensible (Scotch) with other variants of food and drink in front of TV and a log fire with my family around me. It appears, from subsequent reports, however, that I was neither uncivil nor ill-humoured.
Boxing Day brought a gigantic hangover. At (I have just been discovered: it doesn't make much sense to continue, as I have had to be defensive-aggressive about being "so rudely interrupted". I'll continue when I can if the foregoing is not stolen and/or destroyed from wherever I attempt to secrete it).
”Suffolk; Bed. Tuesday 1st January, 10.30am”
Arrived here at Bella and Frank's yesterday. Had game pie and claret and saw the New Year in with a lot of Suffolk gypsies at the Nag's Head. I am writing this with Jo's cognisance. There is an hour before "social life" needs to begin. Her "discovery" of me writing to you prompted subsequent (profitable) discussion. I don't feel, in fairness, that I can indulge at this stage, but Jo realises that I need "a little space" to reflect and express. Probably the most sensible way to proceed will be to keep you briefly in touch with my "movements".... (All 3 have just gone out for a walk. I'm probably in the Dog House but who cares. Joanne was certainly, probably justifiably sarcastic, on her departure).
Anyway - writing to you is such a tonic - (a rainstorm has just begun. I feel a mean and wicked triumph at being decadently cocooned in a warm, sumptuous bed while they must be taking shelter from the vicious elements. Everything, however, has its price. It will have to be paid, in this case, with a subsequent display on my part of sympathy, concern and bonhomie. If this letter should be winkled out, I am sure that it will stand no chance of reaching you!)..... We have had (basically) a good week's holiday from home. Tony will be with you as I write. Jo's back. I love you.
In fact, false alarm. That was the next door neighbour's car returning from work. I'll try to, swiftly, keep you up to date: We arrived at Sean's on Thursday. He had Jane have bottomless supplies of elderberry wine which they were dispensing, mulled. Sean got very drunk, made amatory overtures to Jo at a certain stage, during the process of which he fell over an electric fire and fused the electricity. It was actually very funny.....
”Home”: Sunday 6th January: 11.45am
We arrived back yesterday. My term starts creaking erratically into action from the 7th. Woke up this morning to 3" of snow. It's still flecking. Allan is coming to lunch (Twelfth Night) for the last of our festive occasions before the lean months leading to spring. We've also run out of money. The news that I haven't told you is of our 3 days in Suffolk with Frank and Bella. Bella's "condition" improved after our arrival. It's very uncertain with her the distribution of psychosomatic elements. She is a severe diabetic. She tends to play on that fact. She also gets very anxious. She sees a psychiatrist once a week. I think she has outgrown her "infatuation" with me. Anyway, the 3 days were very relaxing, until the last evening, when she messed things up a bit. I would elaborate, but there isn't really time now. I went for 2 walks with Frank. He's a very nice man, kind and intelligent....sorry this has been so fragmentary. It may, however, afford you some imaginative leaps.
I am sitting at my desk with a programme of Debussy piano music. Outside my window is a Winter Wonderland: snow everywhere, snowflakes falling against a leaden sky. I have noticed the sudden dramatic divergence between SF temperatures and ours in the daily papers.
”The Gribble, Wednesday 9th January: 11:11am”
Isn't it strange to think that just over a year ago, we would often find almost unbearable a separation and gap of 5 days and 7 miles; now we tolerate a space of 5 months and 6,000 miles! I have just arrived here after spending a couple of hours at college making preparations for the coming term. There is 2 inches of more or less virgin snow in the college car park. Paul will arrive in due course and then we have to go on to the other site for the staff meeting and academic assemblies. A few pints might, however, shake our resolve!
We shall be away at Easter between 3rd - 9th April. I shall not mention your return to Jo, unless you advise me to. She still fluctuates between considerable extremes of wanting to know as much as possible even to the extent of meeting John Smith (and even sometimes, you!) on the one hand, to obliterating you from her mind, on the other. It would, in any case, be a wonderful (daunting/poignant?) bonus for us to meet - even if only briefly - on 2 or 3 occasions. I am sure that I would appear transparently elated under Joanne's scrutinising gaze. I'm so out of practice!
I have my last free day tomorrow, apart from the weekend. Remember how you used, sometimes, to try to persuade me that my professional commitments were relatively insignificant, and here you are now adhering to a most assiduous and diligent routine, eschewing (I hope) the world of passion and emotion. I wonder how the future will be......?
”Home: Thursday 10th January: 3.30”
Joanne has just gone out to the Co-op to do the weekly shop. This morning we walked up to ”The Old House At Home” and did some talking about "Life". Basically, I think, it was valuable, human and productive. It is unlikely to occur again in civilised and relaxed circumstances for quite some time.
I suppose that right now, Tony's visitation will be approaching its end, and that he and Dan will be preparing for departure, and you for their absence. I look forward with a sort of diffident fascination to your account of the New Year period of reunion. It will be of great interest also to hear about the Smiths and, of course, I shall be very concerned to hear about the fate of the little twin and how Lou is coping.
Paul and I did weaken yesterday. Naughty boys. We went back to his place and drank a few scotches. But there was a wonderful sense of anarchy in by-passing what would have been, inevitably, a stodgy and depressing initiation to the prospects for 1985. A thaw (literal) has begun. But there is a general anticipation of a renewal of cold weather and more snow by the weekend. I will send you any relevant articles from the local press (I wonder whether that will be duplicating the sort of thing your mother does?). (Well, time - I think - for my usual bracketed farewell. I wonder when your new term begins?
Outside my window the bungaloid world is held in an iron grip of white and grey. I suppose that this was never a particularly "fruitful" time for us. I'll continue on Saturday when spring will be closer. I love you).
”The Royal Oak, Saturday 12th January: 12.00am”
Here I am again. I slept in until 10.00am today following the recently unaccustomed experience of WORK at College and having watched a very good late night film: "Americana" (with David Carradine). Well, the term is under way. My programme this time includes:
”Modernism” (contd): Brecht, Chekov, Beckett, Larkin; ”Romantic Themes” (contd): Keats, Tennyson, Yeats, Emily Bronte; ”Creativity and Criticism” (contd); ”Second Teaching Strength” (English for Secondary Age Range non-specialists; P.G.C.E. Secondary Age Range Course (inc. 5 students in schools); ”World and Image” (2nd year of the B.A. Related Arts degree).
I think that's all. I'm going to "have my work cut out" given that there is a great deal of marking and a C.N.A.A. visitation for the Related Arts in February. What trivial detail can I summon up? I have begun to "inherit" items of clothing from Ben! Yesterday, Jo was doing a clear-up and produced an anorak, a pair of boots, pair of shoes, pair of trainers. Rather pleasing as I tend to scrimp my own needs in the light of Jo's spending on herself and the children. (I am not accusing her of extravagance).
I put on about 5lbs weight over the Christmas vacation. I only weigh myself very occasionally, usually at beginning and ending occasions. I seem to remember, however, that you were not averse to the little bit of extra weightiness?! I wonder what you look like now? Maybe you can send me a picture or two soon? Remember my likings when you attend to your hair. It has to be the one physical feature of a person that is significantly alterable (apart from Californian style face-lifts, etc!)
”Home, Sunday 13th January: 8.30pm”
All the family tense/alert with the corporate expectation of individual destinies at work once more tomorrow. Ben was back for the whole of last week, and I went 3 days out of 5. For the others, it's back with a shock tomorrow. Talking about hair, as I was, Jo gave me a short back and sides this evening. But I promise you a flowing mane of ivory and ebony when you return - if you so wish. This has been a stolen moment; I must go down for supper now. My love.
”Home, Monday 14th January: 9.00am”
Another brief note before leaving for college. All the others have gone. There is a light, gentle fall of snow at present. Over the weekend, I discovered/confirmed (without prying) that Joanne has been engaging in a regular, consistent correspondence with Frank. This led to further "helpful" discussion. It also helps to alleviate for me the uneasiness sometimes attendant upon my writing to you, especially as - of course - it now has to be a secret I have to keep, not also from Bella but also from Frank! It really is quite funny from certain angles!
”Home: late”
Do you realise that 6 months have passed since we looked at one another, listened to or heard one another, touched, kissed, smelt or tasted one another? And longer still since we lay, somewhere, happily and easily together? The snow is falling again, graciously forbidding such indulgent memories. Stirrings and coughings around the house prick my uneasy and tiring conscience. Trust, reality, truth and dream, blur. But only for the moment. Certainty will wake with me in the morning, stir me to organise my mixed convictions. I love you.
”Home, Thursday 17th January, 11.00am”
I am sitting at my desk in "complacent" (or "in vacant and in pensive mood" as Wordsworth would have it) state of being, sipping a slightly laced coffee, while outside my window stands and lies a still, cold, white and silent world. A violent sneeze has just ruffled the edges of that complacency. Since I have no news, I shall fall back on the time-honoured British tradition of talking about the weather.
I have just returned from a brief excursion to the shops. Two inches of snow on the ground and a biting wind. The sky above the sea was (is) ominously grey. I don't think that I have ever seen so many seagulls circling the sky in Wittering. Deprived of and looking for scraps of food I suppose. If it is going to be bad weather, quite selfishly I hope that it will be really bad so that it will be impossible to get to work tomorrow and the kids can enjoy a genuine dose of winter snow (very rare here) over an extended weekend.
Having said that, I feel starved of correspondence from you which will not reach me if the Birdham Straight becomes blocked. There has just been a postal delivery - my quarterly treat from the Classical Selection Club. This time I chose Mahler's "Das Lied Von Der Erde" ("The Song of the Earth"). I shall look forward to listening to that later.
Well, I really have dried up for the moment! Without stimulus from you my Muse wanes. The first 3 days of term went well. I was in good Lecturer form and not too fraught. I shall stay in for lunch today - grill myself a pizza and have a couple of glasses of white wine. We went "into the red" again yesterday, but who cares. I have "expectations!"
Did you see that Peter Lawford died recently - from drink - Vodka? (I am missing you. But you are fading. Give me some palpable reminder of you soon, please. I must light a fire and do some washing up. Do you still feel within you the supremacy of us and picnics? Do you still retain the very special nature of our relationship, and that West Sussex picnics may perhaps afford us the highest form of happiness on earth? The grey is intensifying. The wind is getting sharper. The gulls are fewer, but their cries are intensive, hysterical. Don't think me mad. I am, but I want you to share such moments with me....)
”Home, Monday 21st January: 3.00pm”
What a marvellous Monday! You have rung me twice. I was beginning to become rather depressed. Anything over about 12 days begins to register. Today there has been a big thaw and a steady light downfall of rain. During the snowy period I took disproportionate pleasure in sloping around in the extremely comfortable ski-boots which we bought for Ben's holiday last year...
”The Fox, 24th January: 12.00am”
My nerves are taking a beating! Scary things have been happening. I have just been into school. This was my first student-visit of the Spring Term. I always feel uneasy when I make my initial visits. But, on this occasion, I felt absolutely terrified. I made the mistake of accepting the offer of a cup of coffee. Shortly after that I met BJ. He has a very pleasant manner and was welcoming. I was relieved, however, to complete the task. The student is very suited to the ambience.
This afternoon I have to visit another school. Tomorrow I have C.N.A.A. Visitation Meetings..... I talked to John yesterday for the first time since his return from SF. I am glad you are settled in to your new apartment in the city. He didn't appear to think that Tony's visit had been an unequivocal success. If his judgement is correct, I am very sorry. You were, I think, quite looking forward to his arrival and referred to him as something like a "potential ally."
By the time you receive this it will be FEBRUARY. The snow has all gone. As I drove to school this morning an iron frost lay all over the flat, furrowed fields. I saw 4 kestrels poised, fixed aloft the topmost branches of skeletal trees. You could have been with me, a brief walk in prospect, to be followed by settlement in some niche or coign where food, beer and warmth can be found in appropriate balance.
Outside, a frozen world. (I must come back to the real world, which happens to be at the moment in a Sussex pub. I must eat my sandwich, finish my drink and then "Let us go and make our visit". Je t'aime).
”Home: Monday 28th January : 2.45pm”
Hints of spring on a late January day. Gentle birdsong. A low sun with long shadows. Sound of a continuous surge on the shore at high tide. I have just returned from college - Paul Larkin ("Wedding Wind") and Paul Braithwaite (Lavant). Still no letter for me - nearly a month, but I do know that one must arrive any day now.
”Home: 31st January: 12.45am”
......I have poured myself a pre-prandial lager ....I shouldn't be so indulgent really. I had set today aside to construct a series of main lectures that I have to give, starting next Friday, on a newly devised course, which I was half responsible for writing... My family seems jinxed financially, doesn't it? Both grandparents lost small fortunes. My Great Uncle changed his will (previously in my father and his sisters' favour) when his wife died and he married, to everybody's amazement again. She died last year, leaving one sixth of £54,000 to me. But this tenant who can't, of course, be forced to move is stubbornly refusing to do so....It would have been nice, though, if my father had "done the right thing" eight years ago, wouldn't it?
Well, we can start to turn our thoughts to your return now. When that transpires it will not be easy - maybe a lot more difficult than before. There has been, inevitably I suppose, greater consolidation within my marriage during your absence. The family has been much more together and Joanne and I have spent more time with each other. She has made strenuous efforts to get me to go walking on the Downs with her. I am sure that that is natural and not unfair and she has a genuine desire to paint and draw such places. She fell in love with Graffham. But I have felt a determined, if uncomfortable, resistance to such pressures.
There are many places that I feel are sacrosanct to us. I would hate to go, with anyone else other than you, in a car up the lane to Didling Church, for example, and then climb the path through the woods and then on and up the steep hillside. Tell me about how you think of this, please. Am I misguided and wrong, do you think, to feel and act this way? The spring will soon be here, and I shall need to know how to handle it. I want Joanne to enjoy her life and be fulfilled. And, obviously, I could avoid our most secret places. But if I start a process which forms new patterns, they may be even more difficult to depart from in the summer...
***
”Home, Thursday February 7th 10.00am”
It is a miserable day and I'm feeling miserable too. I should be feeling good as I have a free day to myself. But I don't. I've just returned from the bank (money problems) in sleety rain and a sharp north easterly wind. My stomach has been playing up again during the last week or so. I still have not written the lecture that is to be the start of a series tomorrow. And it seems aeons since I heard from you. In fact it's only 8 days.
Just recently there have been misleading signs of spring. Bulbs have started to appear. The dawn choruses have returned. Catkins hang from boughs. We had, the day before yesterday, one of those days when a characteristic creamy film of sunshine lies upon all surfaces, casting mild shadows. It has been pleasant to drive about independently. But it is a flat stage of the year. Admittedly, it probably marks the halfway point of your absence. But to tick over for an equivalent period of time seems a dreadfully bleak and depressing prospect. And what have we to look forward to then?
In my last letter I referred, I think, to Jo's attitude. And what about your position? You won't want to (and mustn't) return to waste your life on me. Having tested change for so long a time (albeit more distinctively for you) will either of us be content to carry on more or less where we left off and in more or less the same way? I'm sorry to launch this letter in such a melancholy fit. But the problems are real. Are they soluble? We shall need to anticipate them. Tell me what you think. I love you.
”Same day: 12.30”
Well, I feel a little better now. I have got well into the task (of preparing the lecture). It's all in my head, and it's just a question of concentrating on ordering it onto paper. I have the afternoon and evening free to achieve that.
Yesterday, Christopher Fry (the dramatist) delivered a talk to the ”Creativity and Criticism” group. In his late seventies, he spoke for nearly an hour, elegantly and eloquently. He stood throughout, firm and straight. He is a very nice man with a considerable twinkle in his eye. But I have never appreciated his work, and I found his talk, too, finally, empty of substance: all glittering style.... I don't see much chance of communicating with you for another week. That will mean a fortnight between letters from me. But the last one was a monster, wasn't it? With my love.
”The Nag's Head. Saturday 9th February: 12.00 am”
The snow is back. Two inches fell in the night, and it is still falling steadily. Things are looking better than they were on Thursday. That's because I have the respite of the WEEKEND again. My day yesterday was a resounding “success.” I gave a formal talk for an hour on The Language of Criticism (in relation to poetry); then my colleague did the same in respect of art (using slides). After that we held separate seminars on the imagery of Blake.
After lunch - the same division for practical workshops. It was a satisfying day, but good to get over. My stomach had improved, and I enjoyed Scallops au Gratin in the evening.
I am rather disappointed to have received no response from you yet. At least I don't think that you have responded to my last letter. I have been rather confused over it all. I just know that I try to write steadily to give you a picture to latch onto, while your letters are sporadic and fragmentary. Don't the weekends allow you some moments of reflection and commitment to me? I know that your life is very demanding but it shouldn't be that demanding. I cannot believe that in any given week you could not find one hour to shut out the world and commit yourself to total communication with me. I could understand that when Tony was over, but since he left I have only received one exhausted letter, written nearly 3 weeks ago after an even larger gap. I shall probably repent those words early next week when some full and reassuring letter arrives; meanwhile you must try, retrospectively, to understand my frustration.
I dreamed about you last night. Joanne and I had, seemingly, acquired a house on the shores of Pagham Harbour. The garden looked out across the water. To the left was woodland. I was looking out across the view. Jo was in the kitchen below, with a similar scene before her. It was a summer’s day. Robbie was playing in the garden. Suddenly, you climbed over a small rock wall at the bottom of the garden, to the right, with Dan. You waved and beckoned and sat down on the grass. You were sun-tanned. Your hair was curly and almost golden. What I noticed most was that you wore light-green lipstick and eye-shadow! I stayed fixed to the spot, frozen into immobility. Dan and Robbie moved towards one another, to meet. That's about it. Make what you will of it! Have you had any significant dreams recently?
(Paul has just arrived. I'll continue when I can. Love.)
”Home: Tuesday 12th February: 3.30pm)”
All is now sunshine and song (metaphorically). I have just rung you. You will have absorbed my frustration. It has gone. What I (selfishly) miss, on some occasions and periods of time, is the sense of your presence to encourage me and give me hope in life. I think that I am good in my professional life, and quite good in my domestic life, in encouraging others to fulfilment. But, though quite resilient and independent, I am hopeless at encouraging myself. I have tried to be that for you, recently, at long distance. But I have so missed you. Forgive my, perhaps, bludgeoning tones this morning. Interpret the love in them. I am so happy to know that you are to return to Sussex soon. I shall obviously think about it carefully.
(I love you enormously - Robbie's back - Just hearing your voice filled me again with such certainty. I hope it worked the same for you, irrespective of the "rude" awakening. Love, and anticipation.)
”Home: Thursday 14th February, St Valentine's Day: 8.45am”
I am feeling incomparably better than when I started this letter. I have another entirely free day, but this time so much greater expectations. All the family are out. The work pressure is reduced considerably. I can cope with tomorrow's full day this evening (From 11.00am - 2.00pm I am taking the 30 students on a coach to Harting Hill to encourage them to "respond imaginatively to Nature").
The snow is still lying in quite large stretches on top of the Downs. Yesterday I paid my last School Practice visit of the Spring Term. It was below freezing, but the sun was brilliantly clear (remember Pater's Conclusion to ”The Renaissance”?). On the way, I passed through Stoke, Funtington and Westbourne. It brought things back searingly. I have hardly been in that area at all during the past 7 months.
At Lavant, Paul yesterday produced the long-awaited letter. Having spoken to you on the 'phone, I have been able to exercise great will-power. It lies unopened! I preferred the option of reading it with care and consideration, in comfort and relaxation (today), to scurrying through it furtively (yesterday). First I am going to the shops for certain necessaries. On my return, I shall indulge myself in reading my first correspondence from you for what seems like months, but is only weeks. That will result in my adding a brief footnote to this letter. (For that purpose, I shall adopt a new Papermate pen. The number of Tempo Ultrafine biros I have expended on Air Mail paper since August is prodigious!).
Your letter, spanning a gap of 3 weeks from the brief utterance on New Year's Day to 22nd Jan, began with a catalogue of pressures experienced. It was formidable and, as I'm sure I must have said, I did, and do, imaginatively understand. Best forgotten as soon as possible. The next stage of the letter was much more optimistic. A sporadic description of your new apartment followed. I don't know what I meant by "Oscar Wilde rules O.K? Down with Boy George." I'm sure it must have meant something extremely witty and subtle to me at the time. I must have been pissed! Presumably it had something to do with your charming Director (and maybe his second mate?). You spoke of the supportive effect of my letter of Dec. 16th and then of your plan to return in mid-June. Small snag - it will coincide with the beginning of my marking of "A" levels. I have to do it in the summer still, to survive financially over the vacation. (Unless, of course, they suddenly resolved the Will).
The last 2 pages refer to my last letter, written just before Christmas, and is full of love and effusiveness and gratitude. Thank you for the outpourings re-read here on a sunny, frozen morning - snow still lying on rooftops and in gardens. And so your letter ends. It was a lovely letter really, and I could not have asked for more in essence. If I have, occasionally, sounded testy - it has had to do with the frustration caused by what seem like excessive gaps in your corresponding. My letters have, I think, tended to be long, regular and, in general, balanced. This I have seen and willingly undertaken as my "role" during this "stage" of our relationship.
Your letters have tended to be much more fragmentary and introspective and written in states of near exhaustion. What I would like between now and June would be to receive, in addition to the above, an occasional letter from you which is expressed without the imposition of any constraints whatsoever. So that you can be reflective and convey the steady centre of yourself - your love, your expectations, your certainties and uncertainties. And I do like "news". I have really missed that since your very early letters. I realise that Christmas and its aftermath was highly uncongenial but it did involve people whom I know or know of. Some knowledge of their thoughts and actions would have been stimulating and valued. (Here endeth the First Lesson. I'm off to the shops now. Then back for the exciting prospect of yesterday's letter!)
”Same day: 11.45am”
Thank you so very much for your long letter. It has exiled all my main concerns. You see, it was the first steady utterance that I had received from you since well before Christmas, a disturbing festival for both of us. It exactly matches my wishes and desires expressed above. Your letter, like this, is quite rightly a mixture of mental and emotional levels, though basically buoyant and purposeful. Remember that we have always regarded it as essential to be as honest to/with one another as we can humanly manage. That is part of the key to our "survival", I am sure.
Time for my solo lunch. Now that I have finished reading your letter, I feel rather sad. I've only had one beer so far. But I'm sure that it's only a temporary phase. Whatever else applies, if these were to be the last words I ever wrote to you and you received from me, as with your letter to me, I know that I will always love you in that unique way that we have so often, so passionately, so poignantly experienced. What I don't know yet is what, if anything, we can do about it to bring happiness, fulfilment and fairness to combine for us all. Please know that I love you, I adore you and I want you. Soon?)
”Home, Saturday 23rd February, 4.30pm”
How chastened you make me feel! Four letters from you since I rang! I am consoled only by the probability that you will have had a long letter from me (commencing in self-pity and concluding with hope and expectation) before you set off on your skiing week tomorrow. Thank you for your Valentine. I received 2 others, almost certainly from my wife and youngest daughter. They received none from me. Joanne received one from another, undivulged, source...
”Home: Monday 25th February: 2.15pm”
What a relief to be home. I woke with a bad hangover this morning. But at last I have some leisure with which to communicate with you. It's a quiet, mild day. Spring seems imminent. Your first letter of the four: a summons to Bath or Somerset somewhere "between when your term ends and when Jo's does." That was nice. I'll defer treatment of that excitingly significant suggestion for the moment.
You then explain your recent state of mind and why you hadn't been able to get around to writing. It makes me feel bad about having rung you, when re-reading this. But it was my love which was calling, in whatever form it took. The next part of the letter expresses doubts as to the future of our relationship - a mirror-image almost of what I wrote to you recently..... You ask me to tell you in my next letter about my "hopes and predictions" for "the next 5, 10, 20 years". I don't think hopes and predictions always coincide. It would be a foolish endeavour for me to try to express them and relate them as far as you and I are concerned. What about you? Could you do it with confidence and certainty?
The rest of the letter is more general - a valiant concession to my appeal for more "substance"! Thank you very much for it. It has occupied me for the past hour. (It is 3.25pm - it does not look as if I shall have this in the post until Thursday. It will be MARCH by the time it reaches you. I love you and I miss you and I wish that I could hold you and kiss you again. It is 7 months since we have looked into each other's ”eyes” to seek for meanings there. By the end of this letter I hope that that prospect will be a more feasible reality for us both. Goodbye for now. I adore you as ever.)
”Home: Tuesday 26th February: 9.00am”
...I have to go into college to get some chores done. Then, ”Romantic Themes” (Tennyson and Yeats), one pint and a sandwich at ”The Gribble”, PGCE interviews starting at 1.30pm, PGCE Programme Board at 4.00pm And so goodbye to another day. But it will take us closer to our first meeting in many months. Will that be scary, do you think? Maybe we should think carefully about the initial venue? What will we talk about? What will we do? Idle, but exciting, thoughts. (I must go now. Outside, strangely, most unusually, there is a "foggy, foggy dew". I wish that you were in it and that I could save you from it but, of course, that had repercussions! With my love. Bye).
”Home: Thursday 28th February: 9.00am”
I am feeling temporarily rather depressed this morning. I suppose there is a combination of "reasons" to account for that condition: the students "slammed" the “Creativity and Criticism” course at an evaluation meeting yesterday; I had a bad night; I am still coughing, spluttering and wheezing; it is the third cold and foggy day in a row; I am conscious that the car is beginning to suffer substantial problems and its MOT is due in a month; I am feeling guilty because I am almost certainly going to fail to materialise at a special meeting of the ”Related Arts “ teaching team called by the Director for 4.00; finally it has been a long, hard haul since Christmas, in dreary weather, with no Half-Term break.
”Home: 11.00am”
Things are looking a little better now: the sun has broken through and the world looks a happier place. I have rung college to offer my apologies for absence this afternoon. That has made me feel easier. It's odd how negative existence is for much of the time. Bella just 'phoned. She was at home, in bed with 'flu. She rang to more or less apologise for her part in the chaotic events of the weekend.
In a nutshell: the weekend was beset by multiplying misunderstandings. I had been, and was, preoccupied on Friday night still with the prospect of our meeting so soon. I was also very tired. I must have seemed distant and remote. To add to this, Bella, apparently, had a severe insulin reaction. It seems that I did not express as much concern as I should have done. (I think that she can generate such states at will, at whatever level of consciousness, whenever she feels that she is not receiving enough attention). The essential problem for her, I think, is that ideologically her sympathies lie passionately with Joanne whom she thinks I treat, as she would put it, "like a shit." Yet she is also infatuated/obsessed or whatever with me, still, I think. I thought that she had got over (but it's probably only been suppressed). Clearly she finds the tension of her feelings difficult to cope with when we are all together. It is a pity, because she is a very kind and affectionate person. She adores the children, who have become an important part of her life. She has been consistent in believing that you represent an essential part of my life.
But to respond to your second letter of the (now) five: ....you caution me not to tell anyone about your return. I have only told Paul (I already had). I feel that he deserves my confidence. He has been my constant ally and confident since your departure. He is, basically, extremely trustworthy. Joanne could put difficult pressure on him in my absence. She must, of course, know nothing. The only remotest danger could involve John, should she - if suspicious - ring him, to make friendly contact, as it were. Can you ensure that he is proof against revealing your whereabouts, in such an event? And what if Lou were to answer the 'phone? Sorry to sound so melodramatic. But I do have to protect certain sensibilities as well as interests!
The middle part of the letter "eases" with the course of the day and becomes positively loving by the evening. I appreciate your wish not to have wanted to make a "demand" of me about April. It is not a demand. I shall need a holiday from work, home and family by Easter. Your presence will give me a reason. It will also provide me with a measure of guilt (or do I mean potential shame?). Some things don't change. We must try to minimise that by planning carefully. Will we, do you think, find profound feelings of difficulty in adjustment? In my next letter I'll be much more specific: dates, suggestions, questions, and so on. What a prospect! There will be 5 days in which we could (and, I think, should) meet before having our "break", which I assume will start on the Monday. I think that I should be back by the Friday. I have not discussed this with Jo yet, although she knows of my intention "to go off for a few days after Easter". She said: "It will do you good."
Your letter ends with expectations of bluebells, Byworth, Graffham, Elsted, Bosham Quay and Wildham Woods, and "the thought of touching again" .....I long to be with you again, alone, together.
***
”Home: Monday 4th March, 9.15am”
Today is bright and windy. I can hear the high vigorous tide. Let me put down some dates:
Saturday 30th March: We drive to London for Frank's 50th birthday party
Sunday 31st/Monday 1st April: We return to Wittering
Tuesday 2nd April: You arrive in West Sussex
Wednesday 3rd April: We drive to Suffolk
Saturday 6th April: We drive to Leicestershire
Monday 8th April: We return to Wittering
Monday 15th April: Joanne's Summer Term begins
So our holiday might span the week 15th-19th April. And there is the possibility of our meeting briefly on 2nd April. When we return on the 8th Paul may be away, so we must have a valid means of communication. This must be pondered upon, but swiftly! Time is running out....
”Home: 2.00pm”
I resisted the temptation to lunch in a pub. Instead I returned here, cooked myself bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms, followed by cheese, accompanied by a glass of Valpolicella and a lunchtime concert of piano music by Debussy. (Complacent?)
Now I am at my desk. I have a scotch on the rocks. There is clear winter/spring sunshine. The wind has dropped, but the breeze is nudging sheets on washing-lines. Nearby, a helicopter is throbbing vigilantly. Well, we may meet again within 4 - 5 weeks! You must be getting animated at the idea of returning to England, I imagine. Will you let me know the dates of your “official” spring vacation. This may well be helpful in the event of a difficult or provocative question from Joanne.
She asked me the other day if I intended to spend the time flying to California and back! Also imagine how you ”would have spent the holiday period, so that I can offer a casual response if required. I like the end of your last letter: "Just think, soon we will be talking (so much talking) and touching again. The thought is almost too acute to bear". The notion is reciprocal. We shall probably expire of spontaneous combustion.
I think that I will go and meet Robbie from school now. Such opportunities to encounter her radiant, appreciative smile will not extend beyond July.
The next month will be an exceptional experience for both you and me. Time ticking away. Anticipation. For what? Spring/summer. The nature of our future”? To be together again after 8 or 9 months. And I shall have to attempt to act throughout as if nothing out of the ordinary is in the offing! A challenge indeed, especially when in my cups. But if I'm too sober I might end up by being boring! A fine rope to tread. Anyway, my feelings of the moment are of ”adjustment”. The resolution of our separation should be an extraordinary and significant occasion. I hope that we shall both be equal to it. I ”know” that we will.
I must leave now. Read again Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning", also his "The Anniversarie", both from ”Songs and Sonnets”. I love you very much.)
”Home Tuesday 5th March, 3.00pm”
Next Saturday Benedict will be 17! The following weekend I shall become 45! Carpe diem. Never mind. There are intimations of spring in the air. I saw snowdrops and crocuses today. The sun is shining, but there is still a chill in the air. Let's hope that the weather will be special for your return. Once again, I shall go to meet Robbie. She is still a great joy and consolation in my life. She is an exceptional person and, like Immy, becoming very attractive to the eye. There is still no hint of bitterness or self-absorption in her. What will adolescence do to that I wonder?
Don't decide to live in California forever if you can avoid it. I would miss you too much, even if it turned me into a Yeats, as a result!
Home: Thursday 7th March: 10.30am” ....
We shall have to be very careful (on account of my family's happiness and stability). Joanne, surprisingly, said that she didn't mind whether I went away before or after the end of her holiday when I mentioned it. So it looks as if I could leave earlier. But I think that I would prefer to go at a time when she does not have time and space to sit and speculate. The main thing is that she must suspect nothing. If it came to the very worst I suppose that we would have to adopt a local strategy, meeting daily with perhaps just one night for me away from home. But I think that we deserve more than that! I am not "getting cold feet", just beginning to try to appraise the realities of the situation.
Where for example, do you think that I should say I am going? Joanne may "allow" me to have the car which would be much more convenient and convincing, even if I barely use it, leaving it somewhere fairly nearby. She may say that I can have it only if I go before she returns to work. What melodrama! It must look all very petty from your perspective. But you must put yourself, as best you can, in my position (and Jo's). Underneath the placid exterior, there is a very emotional as well as stubborn person. I have to live with her. I don't want to cause distress to the family, so I shall have to tread very carefully. Homily over.
It's 11:11:11.....I'll end now. This has necessarily been a rather pragmatic letter. The wheels of mighty enterprise are being set in motion - it's all a matter of scale! Remember that I have loved you over 8 years and during your 8 months absence. And will. Always.
***
”Home, Monday 11th March, 11.00am”
...It is bright. There is birdsong. The breezes remain chilly... Last week Jo and I both sat glued to our seats watching a documentary called "The Mistress". She has the advantage of me on such occasions, as she can study my profile and the television at the same time. There was one excruciating moment when one of the women involved said something like: "What a wife should fear the most is correspondence between her husband and his mistress. And the greater the distance, the more dangerous. Things can be said on paper that can have a more enduring and deeper impact than is always achieved in the presence of the other being."
Wow! Anyway, I hope that it doesn't go on much longer. I don't think that I could endure such another autumn, winter, spring. Friday night, as is often the case, I feel rather pleased to be married. Home beckons, after a particularly demanding day. Settling in, relaxing, a pleasant meal (grilled lamb chops). Reasonably civilised conversation, followed by television.
After a Saturday morning lie-in I watched athletics on T.V. Then I decided to wander along to a local jumble sale. I happened upon the best collection of second-hand books that it has been my luck to encounter for several years. I got about 30 Modern First Editions for £2. The batch included a signed, limited (500) volume of poems by Eden Phillpotts, with 8 black and white illustrations by Claude A. Shepperson, R.I. on hand-made paper. Published by Methuen in 1905. That alone must be worth at least £10. Very exciting.
Yesterday was not such a good day. Jo and I snapped and snarled at one another from the word go. I did my best to "keep a low profile". A partial explanation is that "it is the time of the month". One final ”important” point: Jo, yesterday, was ”insisting” that she would prefer it if I went for my "individual" holiday ”early rather than late. I have stalled her on this point, asserting in true-blue Chauvinist manner: "I shall go when I feel like it, and that is the end of the matter." But I would like to know as soon as possible how flexible your arrangements are. If I then, at a fairly late stage, suddenly acquiesced to her wishes it might help to allay her suspicions...I wonder if she has some secret lover up her sleeve. She seems excessively keen to get me off her hands ”before” she gets back to work!
”Same Day: 2.00pm”
I'm at a loose end. I've got loads to do. But I'm ”bored”. I think that it is that I am getting excited about your imminent return. I am beginning to get disinclined to do anything that isn't essential and immediate. As the time grows shorter and shorter before your return the prospect seems to me, ironically, less and less real. It has been, relatively, a long time - 8 months out of 8 years. You could almost have born a child since we last met! I should be feeling joyous with anticipation, but I suppose that I am beginning to feel, also, apprehensive. What will it be like? Will we get the balance right after such a long "rift"?
You were always so much better than me at taking such things in your stride. It was also an area in which you were my mentor. I have missed that guidance and encouragement. What will happen in June, I wonder. The pattern must change. But how? I ”can't” leave my house and home, but the sacrifice of not being able to be with you is often unbearable. One would have thought we should have been able to teach ourselves to get used to and to accept it by now....
(I must achieve something now. Perhaps writing to you is some kind of achievement? I love you very much. Look after yourself).
”Home, Thursday March 14th: 11.11am”
...Did you ring recently? Twice? One, about 10 days ago, at about 3.00am. Joanne was furious. She had only just managed to get off to sleep. The second occasion was last night at about 11.00pm Joanne answered it but it cut off. Strangely and rarely we were talking about you and me at that very moment. Earlier in the evening we had been to watch Robbie play the recorder and sing in the Chichester and District Primary Schools Music Festival. It was a very enjoyable evening. Peter Walsh contributed as one of the few performing adults.
After we had returned and Robbie was abed, we sat and ate Quiche Lorraine washed down with Riesling and watched a programme on Elisabeth Frink, the sculptress. Then, over a nightcap, we had a discussion on the evening's performance, during the course of which I could not resist casually mentioning that Peter Walsh had "arranged a couple of my songs". I subsequently had to satisfy Jo's curiosity, in very broad terms, as to the context in which this phenomenon had occurred! (Mentioning the fact that you had set them to music). I was pleased that she did not, as might have been expected, react at a very personal level. Quite soon she headed the conversation towards speculation about the notion of my writing a book which she could illustrate. (This has been an ambition that has lain dormant for years. But recently, Jo has picked up her Art again, much more positively - largely under Frank's influence.)
(That's all. Just keeping in touch. Shall we always keep in touch, I wonder? I hope so. I love you. Not long to go).
”Home: Monday 18th March: 2.30pm”
Today I pen my last words to you for a considerable time. I have just returned from my last Monday session of the term. It is a lovely day - sunny, with a blue to transparent sky. The easterly breeze still holds a slight chill, however, otherwise I would be writing this in the garden instead of at my desk. Robbie's words in her hand-made birthday card to me were:
“To Dad”
You are forty-five right now,
I don't know why
I don't know how
But all I know is you are sweet
You give me love right off my feet.
Love Robbie
Thank you for your card, the photographs and your letter. I had a good birthday. An above average crop of presents; people must lay greater value on one as the years go by! Your card had a duck and a drake proceeding, parallel, in opposite directions. A setting sun; or was it rising. Bull rushes, mostly still erect. Piscean? Nothing evidently symbolic in your photos, I think, although one can usually manage something if one tries. Why am I becoming prurient?
This morning I went to the bank. "The Will" doesn't seem to be materialising. I borrowed £2,000 against it a year ago, not repaying it, merely paying monthly interest. Also, we need another car and I owe Paul £320. So I am hoping to squeeze about £4,500 out of Mr Morton, the manager. Tomorrow is Budget Day.
To your letter: when we meet you want some serious "straight" talking. I agree with that definitely. But let's have some fun too. You take me to task with such phrases as "well, really!! “Come, come!" and "cop out!" You're probably right but I don't entirely understand what prompted the somewhat satirical edge. Honest. I must be "thick" in my deviousness or devious in my thickness. Whatever happens, when we meet, we must not encourage conflict or criticism. We have both had much to contend with. We owe ourselves warmth, generosity and love. It will be difficult in prospect as the time grows closer. It will, after all, be a crucial experience. But it will be our time. We can make it wonderful....
”In bed: Tuesday 19th March: 8.30am”
With a glass of milk and a wholemeal biscuit. Shortly after I finished writing to you yesterday my stomach started to go to pieces. Obviously I had a "heavy" weekend. I am determined to get in for my last session of the term. I haven't taken a day off for illness, it seems, for years. It's odd that you wrote your last letter in a diminished state and here I am in a similar condition. I must get in shape for April! With my love.
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