Important to Me

by Pamela Hansford Johnson

  Later that morning, I had to lecture to the girls at Mills College about some aspect of English literature, I forget what. Before me was the prettiest collection of girls en masse that I had ever seen, all yawning their heads off.

  I began sternly. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know you have been up all night. So have I.’ (This was not strictly true.) ‘But I want you to stay awake and alert for forty-five minutes: after which, with the permission of your faculty, you may go to sleep again.’

  I must say they were all very good. Mills College has now disappeared. It is a dreadful pity.

  We were not supine during our months at Berkeley. We visited and talked at every campus in the University at that time, with the single exception of La Jolla.

  While Andrew was with us, we made a trip to Los Angeles which, once you are down from the heights of Bel Air, is one of the most depressing towns I have ever set foot in. As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland (not far from Berkeley itself), ‘There’s no There There.’ There is not. No central point. It is a great, shambling, shoddy conglomeration of buildings and tangled motorways. What ‘Hollywood’ glamour it may once have had, is all gone. I do not think even the snack-bar waitresses hope to be ‘discovered’, and swept away to stardom. Above all there is the smog: it gives the effect of the blue heat-mist of a fine summer day. Actually, it is pollution that makes the eyes water, and gets into mouth and nose, lingering disgustingly upon the tongue. And when we went to Pasadena we found that, incredibly, worse. But perhaps I am out of date. In both places, the air may now be clean and pure. But I admit that I doubt it.

  They talk of the ‘smog’ in San Francisco. Actually, this is for the most part heavy sea-mist, which clears pretty early. On the heights of Berkeley, you are quite free from it, except for the early morning hours.

  One of the painful sights, for a visitor, was that place of misery, the island of Alcatraz. It looked so charming, too, lit up at night, out in the bay: but it was hard to enjoy a meal, within view of it, with anything of an appetite. I am happy to say that it is no longer a prison. But this, in a sense, is sweeping the dust under the carpet. Did one really care what happened to the prisoners, when that rock of hopelessness was no longer on one’s conscience? Did they go to San Quentin, which can’t have been much better – though it had then an enlightened governor? Where did they go? Out of sight, out of mind? Maybe. But when I was in California, it was neither.

  We left for New York in January, by air. We rose before dawn, when it was dark. But as we crossed the Golden Gate bridge, the sun rose. First in a ring of scarlet, as on an electric hotplate, then a shower of sparks. The sky paled to peacock blue – above the scarlet came the gold: soon the whole sky was ablaze. We had a singularly clear flight, and were able to see, as if it were only a hundred feet below, the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi.

  New York was, of course, freezing.

  It may be observed that we were now flying, rarely sailing, more’s the pity. A note on this.

  I am afraid of flying. I will not say that I am terrified, or I should have opted out, as some of my acquaintances have done. But how Charles and I would have spent about twenty years weaving our way from England across the majority of the United States and great parts of Eastern Europe by other means, I simply do not know.

  I think Charles has, through sheer habit, come to terms with the whole thing: as indeed, he comes to terms with most things. He is stoical, philosophical, and to an extent knowledgeable about aeronautics – though this, he says, is really of no advantage, in fact the reverse.

  Any sensible person is aware that the moments of greatest danger are in the take-off and landing. This I appreciate intellectually. But not emotionally. Our flight is called. We board the plane. There is that awful step between earth and the inevitability of air. Then I neatly fold my copy of The Times so that I can begin on the crossword puzzle. ‘For we have no help but thee,’ is my sacrilegious greeting to it.

  After an interminable period, we taxi to take-off point. There will be a long wait to the first cigarette, the first drink in the air. Up we go and very quickly, too. I fill in three clues in the crossword, often with a marked quickening of the intellect. We are airborne! We are first allowed to smoke, then to release (or just to relax – I am in favour of this, knowing what clear-air turbulence can be like) our seat-belts. All is beauty below us. Ice comes clinking in the glasses.

  At the end of it all, the landing. However dangerous I know this is, I simply do not care. The lights of New York or San Francisco below us, splendaceous maps of gold and silver. We are nearer the ground. I shall have less far to fall.

  Silly, I know: but this is the way I feel.

  My trouble occurs in mid-Atlantic. Never mind those absurd life-jackets. If I were plunged into the sea, even assuming that I could inflate the ludicrous things, blow whistles, flash lights, I should still die of cold before help could come. So I sit – at times – and wonder how this enormous tonnage of metal keeps in the air at all. I find my normal pace of reading abnormally slowed down: in a flight of seven hours, I will have read only a quarter of a novel, which, on the ground, I could have finished in two. My appetite for food is vestigial.

  We flew several times with Captain Earthrowl, whose only ominous peculiarity was his name. (He never crashed anything in his life.) Knowing us quite well, he often used to come out from the flight-deck for a chat: never knowing that I was screaming inwardly, ‘Go back! Go back! And fly this awful plane!’

  Sometimes I myself was invited on to the flight-deck, where fear would mysteriously leave me, and something of the delight some find in flying would take over.

  Indeed, on the short trip over swampland from Atlanta, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, I was allowed to sit with the Captain – this was a tiny plane which had once belonged to General Eisenhower – and thoroughly enjoyed the precise and delicate skill of landing.

  But on a jet in mid-Atlantic – I feel quite differently.

  I have no tendency to air-sickness, even in the worst turbulence, and neither has Charles. I fear that if it is very bad, I may be far too scared to feel sick.

  How bland are some of the passengers! The men who regularly commute! David Frost, who can (and must) go to sleep. But the majority of air travellers are frightened, and the cabin staff know it. I admire the latter inordinately. They must beam all the time, and in the last resort, be prepared to die with stoicism. I particularly admire the apparently impervious Qantas stewards, who rouse one from gloom with ‘Time for a drink?’ or ‘Time for tucker?’

  I must admit that my very first transatlantic flight did not bring me much comfort. Charles and I had decided that, for the sake of the children, then young, we would fly separately. (We do this no more: they are adult, and they can cope.)

  I was seated next to an agreeable old gentleman who had been a fighter pilot in the First World War, and who had emerged without a scratch. Soothing. But in the seat behind us were two men who obviously knew everything about aeronautical engineering. We were getting near to Newfoundland – how near I do not know – when one said to the other, in schoolboy French, ‘Je crois que nous avons perdu une engine.’

  Horrific enough, and my First World War pilot was blissfully unaware of what had been said.

  Then: ‘Je crois que nous avons perdu une autre.’

  How true all this was, I can’t tell: though I do know that we descended at Gander at a shattering, deafening rate, and were stuck in that abomination of desolation for the best part of three hours.

  The passengers sat on stools at the bar, in the bleak airport lounge, gossiping, smoking and drinking. Having somewhat recovered from my fright, I asked an airport official what they found to do with themselves all day, whenever a plane was not coming in. Newfoundland, from the air, is a place of horror, consisting of ravines, and terrible strips of ice and snow. (What it is really like, I don’t know.) He replied, ‘Oh … we play a bit of poker.’

  I rejoined Charles some hours later
in New York. Even he was looking somewhat put out.

  The most horrible trip we ever had was from New Haven to Atlanta, via Washington. The airline was a small one, the weather was foul. At Washington, it became markedly worse. In fact we were on a roller-coaster all the way. Several courageous old ladies stuck it out gallantly for a while, then resorted to the sick-bags.

  Atlanta, at last. We were met by representatives of Agnes Scott College, where we were to lecture, and do a bit of ‘sitting’, and soon realised that only the airport was not Dry. We dined there, stoked ourselves up more than our hosts approved, and then, longing for bed, made for our luggage. It had been left behind, the lot of it, in Washington. The temperature that night was 90 °: we had no nightclothes, no toothbrushes – nothing. When we got to Agnes Scott, they did procure for us toothbrushes and paste, and for me hairgrips. But, such is the efficiency of the U.S.A., all those bags were returned to us by 7.30 next morning.

  All the same, there are great aesthetic compensations in flying, and I would not have missed them. I am enchanted, when I think of what Shakespeare would have made of flight.

  8. Women

  ‘I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.’

  This epigraph from Tolstoy, with which I begin these series of reflections, may not seem particularly apposite at the moment – or to some it may seem all too apposite. But I hope to explain my meaning in due course. A hint: Tolstoy was not really thinking of domestic help. I am, among other things.

  I am naturally in sympathy with many of the aims of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Equal pay for equal work, equality of opportunity, in so far as it is possible (sometimes it isn’t), and the relief of women not devoted to domesticity from the intolerable boredom of the daily round. Some take great pride in the smooth-running perfection of the home: home and children are fulfilment enough, and good luck to them. If this is so, only a bigoted meddler would want to interfere. Some like it partially: a great many women and, incidentally, some men, really enjoy cooking. But every day? Every meal? And I confess that I do not know how anyone in her senses can enjoy making beds.

  There are aspects of Women’s Lib that I dislike, and I don’t only mean inanities, such as brassière-burning. (Some figures can stand it, but most cannot. Also, let us remember that the brassière was a liberating influence in itself: it enabled us to run for buses without having to grab at our chests.) What I do detest, are those persons on the fringes on the movement – I hope they are mere fringes – who want to stir up sexual hate, to make bitter enmity between woman and man. Hatred is always detestable: we have enough of it in our world already, without adding to it by pure silliness. I like the company of men: the idea of a society without them, a perpetual henparty, would to me be unspeakable. (I do not want to charge like a rhinoceros into men’s clubs. Do leave them in the peace they deserve.) But let me tell this outrageous story, and fuel the fires of Women’s Lib. by doing so. A year or two ago, a wedding reception was held in a men’s club of great repute. Alas, when it came to getting in, it was found that the only way into the room of celebration, was through the library which no woman’s foot was permitted to tread. What do you think the men did? They rigged up a ladder to a convenient window, and made the women guests crawl in that way. I am sorry this ludicrous event wasn’t televised. Anyway, it is one wedding that I should not have attended, and I am stunned by astonishment that so many of my sex were content to do so.

  Sexual tensions do exist: they are psychologically inevitable: and any attempt to increase them is irresponsible.

  To begin with – though it is here a side issue – why does it seem so impossible that women priests should be ordained in the Church of England? The Congregationalists have had their successful ministers, such as Dr Maude Royden. I believe the true, if concealed, opposition to this is a deep psychological one, and hard to break down. In the great monotheisms, God is presented to us as a man, made in man’s image, and the priest is regarded as His surrogate. Silly? Perhaps. I am not interested in the opinions of agnostics in this particular matter. I, personally, should like to see (experimentally) women admitted to the priesthood. But they won’t be, not in the foreseeable future. Something deeper than common sense, something deeper than all reason, is militating against them.

  In marriage, there are, and always will be, such depths: deeper than the bed of the deepest sea. I do not believe any normal woman can give one rap of respect for a man who is not prepared to care about her, and, within possible limits, protect her from harm. I am not now talking about financial protection. (Do I expect to ‘look up to’ a man? In the physical sense I have no option, since few men are smaller than I.) In the more serious sense, I need a man I can admire: and if there is anything at all admirable about me, he may if he pleases, return the compliment. Marriage is, after all, a small part bed to a deal of conversation. I expect discussion of all vital matters, above all, those dealing with the children. I expect it, and I get it.

  I should not expect my husband, after an exhaustingly hard day’s work, to help me unduly (though I am sure he would, if driven by necessity) with household chores. I might not wish to humiliate him. Do you know why I say it might, in our present social mores, be humiliating? It might even be regarded as a jail sentence.

  Listen to this. Only a few weeks ago, a magistrate sentenced some young sinner, whom he did not wish to send to prison, to a hundred hours or more of housework. So the cat is out of the bag! Housework, for most women, is penal. The magistrate regarded it as punishment. And of course, certainly, it is equally penal to those whom we can induce to work for us.

  By the way, I have often noticed how little Soviet husbands will help their wives, though they will certainly both have been out to work (equal pay for equal work is the law there). Some of them will scarcely help to stack a couple of plates, while she plods from table to kitchen on her doubtless sore feet. This mostly applies to couples in middle age: and believe me, the wives complain about it. Among younger married people it is often different: the work gets shared: it is quite chic for the man to do his part. But that is in another country.

  Let me, for a moment, consider the position of the working-class wife in our own. She will very likely go out to work: not to find ‘expression’, not to ‘liberate’ herself, but because she has to have the extra money. Can we ‘liberate’ these people? Of course we cannot. Not if we wish to ‘liberate’ ourselves. Let us not talk ‘bourgeois’ nonsense, even if we ourselves are inescapably bourgeois.

  Naturally, the woman who goes out as a daily cleaner needs the money she is paid for her work, by those able to afford someone to do the ‘rough’. But can she possibly enjoy it? Of course not. No one could. It is dead-end labour. And it leaves the rest of us free to do the work we do enjoy, or at least, have some interest in.

  For years I was pretty unliberated. I had my writing to do; I did so because I wanted to, but also because it supplemented a wretched pension, for my mother, from the Crown Agents, and an inadequate army allowance for myself. I had my two young children to rear, I had my fair share of the domestic work. The rest of it was done by my mother, and a cheerful woman from nearby called Maggie, who did most of the cleaning. But with all this help, I invariably went to bed dead tired.

  With my remarriage in 1950, my circumstances inevitably changed. So did my way of living. Charles and I were both writers, and he was other things besides. We wanted to do our writing, as far as was possible, in the mornings and early afternoons, when we were fresh. My mother was ageing, and badly needed some rest herself. So we embarked upon a series of cook-housekeepers and daily women. In Clare, we were cared for by the gardener’s wife and her daughter-in-law. When, in 1957, we returned to London, to a large flat in what is now the dilapidated Cromwell Road (we were there for eleven years) it was to take over the former tenant’s housekeeper
and her ready-made baby. She was with us for a long time. We, during that period, were travelling extensively in the U.S.A., so there had always to be someone at home. Our last housekeeper, Conchita, is still with us: but she is over retirement age, and must soon return to Catalonia. She has been hardworking and over-conscientious, for twelve years; I have tried to help her as best I could, but half the time she would not let me. She had, for a long while, five of us to look after; Charles and me, Andrew and Lindsay, and Philip, when she first came, was only ten. Conchita worked hard. In later years, she has worked too hard, and though I have found relief for her as best I might, she is getting tired. So I am ‘the man on her back’.1

  If I am to be liberated, how can I be so, as a married woman, a professional woman with three children, without enslaving another woman?

  More guilt, and I see no solution. Has anyone a practical answer?

  I think it not inappropriate to say a word here about the deliberate illegitimising of children. It has become fashionable in some quarters to downgrade marriage. It has been made so by various notabilities of stage, screen and television, who have glowingly announced that they have, or are about to have, a baby, and have no intention of marrying the father, even though they may have been living with him for years. Now, one should not have a child for any therapeutic, or ‘liberating’ reason. That child is of primary importance. This attitude is irresponsible.