'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

by Barbara Skelton

  *

  Am reading a biography of Victor Hugo: ‘The great advantage in calling oneself vicious is that it permits one to be vicious’ – Sainte Beuve. (Think of W. who is always saying how badly he treats me.)

  *

  Cyril and I are now staying at the Hotel Sexi, Almuñecar. It is a cloudy day; the fishermen are laying out their black nets across the sands, white gulls fly above the water, and there is the sound of breakers beating against the rocks and the occasional shout of a fisherman. We have ordered breakfast; the sky is grimly overcast but it looks as though later the sun may break through; behind the spread-out nets is a small shack with ‘Bar’ written across; a donkey stands mutely by, loaded with packs and large black pigs snuffle about the sand; the sea is outlined by high cliffs, covered in scrub, which curve round to a point. It is so beautiful here, with its custard-apple plantations, loquat, bananas and sugarcanes that stretch out behind the town in long yellow strips bordered by the Sierra de Almijara mountains. We have been taken round all the fincas for sale in the vicinity by a boy. When we first picked him up I said to Cyril, ‘Ask what he does for a living, what his profession is.’

  ‘There’s no need to ask, it’s quite clear, his profession is boy,’ Cyril replied, and made up the following ditty.

  ‘There once was an eminent thinka,

  who set his great mind on a finca.

  When he bunged in a cheque

  to the owner on spec

  his bank bunged it back with a stinka.’

  Last night the boy took us to a café to meet his fellow spivs whom he said would sing flamenco, but it turned out to be an equivalent to ‘The Witch’s Sabbath’ – a scene from Goya.

  *

  Left Almuñecar yesterday. It was wet and windy. Another bus ride through sugarcane country. After being cut the sugar gets piled into donkey packs and transported to the factories set up in every town, spotted from a distance by the height of the chimneys. Apropos of feeling not at all secure with me now, Cyril said he felt like a dog on a leash; each time he took a leap in the air he was wrenched back by the neck.

  Because of the enormous bill at the Hotel Sexi, when we arrived at the Malaga bus terminal, he refused to take a taxi and insisted on walking down the main street carrying my typewriter, basket and Moroccan bag. We then argued about where to stay. I was in favour of pressing on to Torremolinos, as country surroundings are less depressing in bad weather. Cyril grumbly as there has been a muddle over his review book, on Bill’s instructions, one copy having been returned to England, another not having arrived. We discussed whether to contact the Bakewells, have dinner or go straight to bed. The noise of hammering and voices induced us to do a tour of the bars. The Mañana was so crowded we bolted to Tommy’s and found it deserted. Tommy said business had been bad ever since the opening of the new bar next door.

  *

  Doing a trip with the Bakewells in Tommy’s white Jaguar. I have had a temperature brought on by sun or from putting off W., as I was due back three days ago. Several times in the night, Cyril said, ‘What am I going to do when you go back to England?’

  ‘I don’t know, Cyril. It depends on you. After all, the divorce is still going on.’

  *

  Well, the affair is now nearing its end. We hope! The final veer on the part of W.

  I got back to Chester Square to find the gaudy, paisley wallpaper lining the stairs had been hung upside down, that he had filled his house with ugly furniture, a set of twelve, highly polished fake Victorian dining chairs and a lot of Peter Jones occasional tables. Then there was a terrible dinner party. The two guests of honour (American publishers) were drunk, dinner was cooked by the Italian servants of tasteless noodle soup and dry veal stuffed with hard-boiled eggs. The wine was vinegary and afterwards came the inevitable wail, ‘What are we going to do now?’

  And, from then on, he sat about rubbing the sweat from his brow with an anguished expression on his face, the lips sucked inward to a receding point and the nose a distinguished beak. No doubt he had something to frown about. When he remained in bed I tried to be attentive by taking up delicious things to eat, which he snatched from my hand without showing any appreciation, all the time saying, ‘Where’s this?’ or ‘Where’s that?’ with his mouth full even before I’d had time to eat.

  I don’t feel upset any more. Each scene has been enacted once too often. First, he insisted on a resumption, without any thought for Cyril’s feelings, in order to bide time while his own divorce went through. Then the panic flight from Madrid. My divorce was about to be heard in court and apparently, if it came out in the papers, it would be so bad for business. Added to which, as a result of the cut in the Marks and Sparks contract, he would be so impoverished he couldn’t afford me. The telephone was going all the time or he would ring someone to report on his latest business development. Then there were the people who called to invite him to something.

  ‘Oh. May I come? Thank you so much,’ he would say with expressionless, unsmiling eyes, ‘so much looking forward to meeting you. I would most awfully like to … thank you so much.’

  He seemed to get very upset on discovering it was too late to go to a party. In the morning, Lizzy Lezard had to be telephoned:

  ‘Who was there? What did so-and-so say?’ – W.’s expressions in times of stress. ‘What’s your game?’ When I couldn’t make an appointment, ‘It’s not good enough!’ When I annoyed him by refusing to do something, ‘Come off it!’

  When, after a year’s wavering, he decided that he had really made up his mind to marry and telephoned to arrange a meeting, I refused, being sceptical and discontented. He kept saying, ‘But this is it’ – meaning D-Day had arrived. That was a month ago.

  *

  Well, I am once more reunited with my husband (without regret) on what he likes to term a ‘trial’. ‘Poohy’ from the bath, as usual, and a lot of ‘Poor Baby’ mutterings, as well as ‘Barbara’ in soft, resigned tones. I don’t feel too unhappy. Of course, there have been terrible rows, mostly about money. The first night we screamed at each other until we both almost spat blood and there was a lot of, ‘Well, why don’t you go back to him…?’

  ‘Yes, I probably will.’

  We had the genet in the kitchen. What a dull, vicious little animal it is – just spits and stinks and sleeps and shits. I am not yet too unhappy about W. (touch wood). I really do feel myself to be out of the trees – the final change of heart has deadened some original spring of emotion. W. said he was as disappointed in me as I was in him, I forget why; probably because I was not seeing people all the time or talking incessantly on the telephone. What he really wanted, he said, was to come back from the office and find me conducting a cocktail party in the sitting room. There was hardly any pleasure in his company except for the instinctive, animal desire to be near one’s mate. We never had a mutual thought or opinion and didn’t even like the same people.

  On receipt of my letter asking to have some clothes returned, he telephoned yesterday and said, ‘Can we meet sometime soon or can I telephone more often?’ How could two people who had been so close break away so finally and abruptly? When I said, ‘No,’ there was a choking sob the other end.

  I go over the past, relishing every detail as one might mull over a good dinner without wishing to eat it again unless desperately hungry. But the full heat of the fever is past and how did it come about? Was it because of his character defects, as C. prophesied? Man of straw! Cardboard Hagen! Mummy dictator! Since the divorce is still going through, C. says he wouldn’t mind so much my seeing W. in London, but he gets into a tizzy when he telephones and shrieks, ‘I would like to kill that man.’

  *

  Another really hot day. Almost unbearable. As usually happens in England, when it does arrive, intolerable. Cannot put my mind to anything. Feel bewildered, sapped of all zest. Do not know what I feel about the two heroes, the maquereau and the salaud, so called, from my vague description of them both, by the Frenchman I met i
n Marrakesh.

  Am seeing W. again. This time, all Feliks’ fault. When I told him that although I had returned to Cyril, he was still going on with the divorce, first giving as a reason to start afresh in a church, the next minute saying artists are not meant to marry, Feliks then said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have mentioned anything if things had been going well with you, but W. has been on to me night and day, and now says that as soon as the divorce is through he will meet you at Caxton Hall.’ So I weakly telephoned and have been having secret meetings ever since, but when he talks of marriage, I cannot take it seriously; in fact, would not really want it. I find living with him lonely and barren … the telephone calls, rushing out to have pointless drinks, the unsympathetic house. But I can barely enter Chester Square, I am so terrified of being seen, and yet I do not have the courage to tell W. that I do not want to marry now.

  *

  Have just come from London. Spent the evening with W., his last before flying to Israel. He was never off the telephone. A lot of turnover talk. Cyril had dinner with the Flemings who abused me in venomous terms.

  ‘What did you have to eat?’ I asked, knowing the usual form.

  ‘Unripe avocados and some rather dull little soles.’

  *

  W. is back from Israel, he seems very concerned about his weight. Never stops staring at himself naked in the mirror, half in wonder, half in doubt.

  ‘I’m thinner, don’t you think?’

  *

  Have now been divorced three weeks. C. let the absolute go through in the same way as the hearing in court, telling me afterwards, clearly terrified that I was going to take some action to thwart it. I got panic-stricken the morning of the absolute, just felt something terrible was taking place, so I consulted a lawyer who listened to everything I had to say and then advised against getting on to the Queen’s Proctor. Said the husband would always bear resentment and would remarriage work out? I said, ‘I shall be a pauper and starve to death.’

  ‘From the sound of it,’ the lawyer said, ‘your husband will always provide. What about the Co-Respondent? Won’t he support you?’

  ‘I think it goes against the grain for either of them to support a wife,’ I said jokingly. The lawyer looked startled, but offered no contradiction.

  *

  C. then rang and said the object in going through with the divorce had been to ‘see’ W. (as in poker) with me as the stake.

  ‘And if I actually do marry him,’ I said, ‘how will you feel?’

  ‘Like someone who has missed a close put on the last green of a championship.’

  *

  When I rang W. at his office to give him news of the absolute, he metaphorically put his head in his hands and, after a long pause, groaned, ‘Now, what are we going to do?’

  The following day I got a letter from C., written on Ritz Hotel notepaper.

  Darling Love,

  For the first time I feel that I have done something cruel to you and for which I can ask you to forgive me, like the cruel things you have done to me in the last year – it purges me of all resentment and it makes me only want to deserve your love. If you had been anywhere but in Chester Square I would never have done it. I enclose six cheques for twenty pounds each, payable monthly, which I regard as your housekeeping allowance. If you are still on your own, they will go on, but if you marry Weidenfeld, they will stop. The moment I am with you again they really become your housekeeping money and I will give you a further twenty a month for your clothes. The rest of my salary we will supervise together. This twenty is only a minimum on the assumption you are also receiving an allowance from Weidenfeld. If this is not the case, please let me know. I still don’t think you should take his job, unless you are going to marry him. It is a painful dependency and will cause talk, and affect you adversely. If you can wait until your book comes out, you will be amply rewarded …

  *

  Have now taken a room on my own in Chesham Place and ceased all sexual relations.

  Slim, elegant Mrs Barbara Connolly spent the Bank Holiday with her ex-husband at her cottage near Elmstead, Kent. Mr Cyril Connolly – Britain’s portentous literary critic and man of letters – divorced her four months ago. Are they planning to remarry?

  ‘Not for the moment,’ said Mr Connolly. ‘Ask me again in a month’s time. I may have news for you.’ When asked if he hoped that everything would come out right in the wash, Mr Connolly said, ‘Yes.’

  Well, the book is out, not nearly as bad as one thought it would be. Clearly I am an unconscious exhibitionist. I welcomed all publicity. Ian Fleming gave it a mention in the ‘Atticus’ column, headed ‘Du côté de chez Connolly’.

  In 1950 she married Cyril Connolly and has since lived in Kent where her open Sunbeam Talbot, flashing through the meadowsweet round a blind corner, is a familiar hazard. She has an Abyssinian cat, is an expert cook (Provencal style) and her slim figure can often be glimpsed, lonely and elegant, meditating during the luncheon hour in some London gallery.

  *

  Never thought I would dare to face the reviews without having them vetted first, but not a bit of it. I grab hold of every newspaper and, as though held by a magnet, become riveted to each page. Luckily, they have been rather good. Tony Powell wrote and complimented me, and Angus Wilson wrote to say he had found it very funny and tremendously realistic of all the horrors of wartime jobs. Quite a relief after running into the Quennells on the train (who were po-faced) and receiving an anonymous letter from Bexhill:

  Dear Madam,

  I was attracted by the dust cover of your first and I hope only book, A Young Girl’s Touch. You were lucky to get anyone to publish it; one of the firm is presumably a German – Weidenfeld – it is a horrible and sexual book, and should be withdrawn from all public libraries. What a heroine! I hope she is not drawn from anyone in the Services. Please never write another book.

  Disgusted …

  * Lady Sherborne, daughter of the Canadian millionaire, Sir James Dunn.

  Chapter VII

  De la Folie Totale

  The marriage to W. took place in late summer, the year of the Hungarian rebellion and the Suez crisis, at Caxton Hall, with our witness, Anne Bassett. I was joined in matrimony with Cyril’s emerald engagement ring, an item the future husband had overlooked. A feeling of utter despair followed the ceremony. Then, the newly weds and witness partook of a ritual lunch at the Savoy. A wedding party was given by the millionaire, Charles Clore. When he heard of the marriage, the editor of L’Oeil Georges Bernier, is reported to have said, ‘C’est de la folie totale.’

  The honeymoon was spent on the island of Ischia. Cyril participated in his fashion from the far end of the island, where he was staying with Wystan Auden.

  When not taking radioactive mud baths, I swam on some slatey beach while W., barefooted, with rolled-up city trousers, lay close by, buried in newspapers.

  The presumption was that the marriage could not possibly last. Would I release him in an amicable manner after three years?

  Marriage was for material betterment, social advancement or to proliferate. Would we part friends? To tease him, I said I could never face another divorce and, leaning forward, stressing each word, I chanted, ‘Until death do us part.’ At once the distressed bird-face appeared, eyes bulging while he chewed at his lower lip.

  Evening conversation: ‘Is it true that so-and-so had an affair with Cecil?’ ‘Is it true that Tom Driberg wanted to marry Joan Raynor?’* ‘Really, you are like a stone to talk to.’ ‘But you only like talking gossip.’

  I began to have nightmares, in one of which I was being followed about by a large male torso with a doorknob for a head.

  From then on, when not staying with the Davises, or in Brussels with Hansi Lambert (née Rothschild), a literary and musical lady of the Belgian banking family, Cyril took a room in Chesham Place. The lemur Wirra landed up with Gavin Maxwell, author of A Ring of Bright Water, and I moved into Chester Square with Didessa, the Abyssinian cat, an
d the genet. This pretty feline, the original cat of ancient Egypt, described as a miniature dinosaur wearing a leopard-skin coat, had spent so much time being caged that it remained adamantly untamable, and skulked under the floorboards and, when it emerged, got swept round the house by the Italian servants, Enzo and his wife, whose culinary speciality was a kind of toad-in-the-hole, a dish that caused me great embarrassment when handed round to dinner guests – the Kilmartins or Graham Greene, who tactfully came to dinner clasping A Young Girl’s Touch for signature, saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t remain a one-book woman.’