by Priya Parmar
Clive and I received so many wedding presents, and we have bought so much here in Paris, I am afraid Gordon Square will become hopelessly cluttered. Yesterday alone we bought a huge, silver Venetian looking glass for our room and several small paintings for Clive’s study. Each time I resist, Clive wins me over to the purchase by telling me that when we are old and grey, we will look back and remember that we bought it on our wedding tour.
I chose pale mauve curtains with butter-yellow linings for the drawing room—perfect.
HOME
10 June 1907—46 Gordon Square
We entertain at home together now.
Once Adrian and Virginia left, the air cleared and Gordon Square felt like home for Clive and me. As if it had always been that way. No. That is not right. The part when Thoby, Adrian, Virginia, and I lived here together stands out clear and precious. But the murky bit, when Virginia, Adrian, and I tried to lopsidedly carry on here without him, has become opaque and distant.
It was not easy to get them out. Virginia is sour with envy and irritation. She hated leaving and was as unhelpful as possible. She unpacked her book boxes twice in a disruptive effort to find her copy of Middlemarch. I re-packed the boxes, and Clive shifted them. I folded the linen, and Clive rounded up the wellies. I collected her silver brushes, and Clive stacked her hatboxes. I know if it had been just me, I would have been flattened by their resistance to moving. But Clive and I did it together, and we withstood the flood.
I collected Mother’s jewellery from the bank at Virginia’s request when she wanted to take it with her and then returned it to the bank at Virginia’s request when she decided she did not. Clive hauled her favourite houseplants to Fitzroy Square in the rain. Sophie, Maud, and Sloper were over there every day for a week sorting out the lumpy furniture and damp kitchen. I went over most afternoons to harass the builders into finishing on time. The double windows reduce the noise enormously and were worth the extra week’s wait. Adrian was no help at all and just clucked about nervously. He was obviously dreading Fitzroy Square.
Now it is just Clive and me and Thoby here. He drifts about the house like a protective ghost.
18 June 1907—46 Gordon Square (beautiful summer day)
I looked at the calendar today and counted backward. Three weeks. But three weeks can mean anything, surely?
27 June 1907—46 Gordon Square (nine pm)
A month. I told Clive. He was startled. He recovered quickly and said all the best things, but he gripped my hands so tightly that I wonder if he meant them. Is that how it always is? Is that how husbands react?
When Clive asked me to marry him, I did not see it right away. Perhaps this is the same? The pieces pause and hover before they snap into place?
I do not feel different yet. No, that is not true. My body feels entirely the same, but now I feel that we are no longer a couple but a family.
Later
We stayed up talking, and then Clive gently nudged me towards bed. He was ginger and faint with me, not at all showing his usual roughhewn ardour. It was all wrong, and I asked him to please stop it. Clive looked at me, surprised and pleased and so relieved. He swept me upstairs to our room and slipped free of his cautious shell. And we became us again.
30 June 1907—46 Gordon Square
The doctor confirmed what I already knew. He gave me a long list of instructions:
Do wear a corset.
Don’t read too much.
Do smoke cigarettes.
Don’t cut my hair.
Do take omnibuses.
Don’t put my arms over my head.
Do sleep with the window shut.
Don’t eat too much.
The last should be easy to follow given the long list of foods I am not to eat. I must avoid: hot chocolate, sour foods, rabbit, cherries, ice cream, and salt. Very boring, but I am determined to follow the doctor’s advice meticulously. Clive is pleased that champagne is encouraged. I did not ask the doctor about sex. If it is prohibited, I don’t want to know.
1 July 1907—46 Gordon Square
We received our friends in our bedroom today. Shocking, ain’t it? We were having the loveliest, rainiest summer afternoon tucked into bed when we heard the barbarians rattle our gate. Sloper tried to tell them that Mrs Bell was not at home, but that never works any more, and Virginia, Duncan, Maynard, and Lytton trooped in. I started to get up, but Clive stopped me. “If they want to come and visit without an invitation, then they get what they deserve,” he said, pulling me back into bed.
They left after ten minutes, and we went back to talking about baby names.
Later (after midnight, can’t sleep)
I lay awake thinking about this afternoon. Spooling my thoughts like thread. It was the determined, possessive way Clive set out to shock our friends today. As though he wanted everyone to know that I am his, that we share a bed. Clive is territorial when I least expect it. A few weeks ago, at a Thursday evening in Fitzroy Square, Clive overheard Henry Lamb drunkenly flirting with me. When I asked him about it, he laughed and was not bothered in the least. “Henry is not the threat,” he said breezily. “Why should I mind?”
If Henry is not the threat, then who is?
JULIAN HEWARD BELL
Wednesday 5 February 1908—46 Gordon Square (late)
Now we are three. Exhausted. It was bone on bone getting him out. Why did no one tell me?
But now he is here, and I can’t imagine a world without him. The name came instantly. When I met him, I knew. I would know him anywhere: Julian.
“Yes,” Clive said. “Julian. Julian Bell.”
And—born on a Tuesday. The things that shake my life happen on Tuesdays.
8 February 1908—46 Gordon Square
Visitors today:
“Not Thoby?” Snow asked, pulling the soft white blanket back to see our son’s squashed red face.
“Thoby’s first name was Julian,” Clive said, reaching for our tiny son’s curled egg-cup hand.
Wednesday 4 March 1908—46 Gordon Square
(icy—not that I go outside)
Julian has been with us a month today. I get distracted by the miniature, perfectly developed beauty of him. He has soft fleshy pads around his wrists, dimpled knees, and fat, stubby arms that reach out and dissolve me into small pure particles. I did not expect it. I did not think I had rooms enough in me for this kind of love. I was wrong. Quite, quite wrong.
I found the violence of the whole thing deeply shocking. First the great tearing away of having him and then the huge roar of ferocious love that swept through my ragged senses. I awoke a lioness.
A lioness now, but my God was I a whale. That is not an exaggeration. I was a large blue-veined whale. For the last four months, Virginia refused to comment upon my size, appetite, or the impending event. She would crumple her nose in distaste when I waddled across a room. I admit, I exaggerated to gain a reaction. Virginia has always been appalled by any human—or worse, female—function, the most offensive being pregnancy. To make my condition palatable and put it within an acceptable context, she kept referencing various resplendent Greek and Roman fertility goddesses when she spoke to me or of me. She still does it even though I gave birth a month ago. I find it wearing. She also referred to unborn Julian as a parasite that was draining me of my Nessaness. Very crass.
But since he arrived, Virginia has been friendly enough to Julian. She announced this morning that she has decided to love him. As if the jury have been deliberating and have returned with a verdict. “I shall love your barbarian angel dearly. I shall lean over his cradle and bestow one hundred kisses like a great, good fairy.”
I suppose, with his huge appetite and atrocious table manners, he is a barbarian. It is the idea of Julian that really bothers her. The fact that there may be someone I love more than her.
Later
Clive just left. He is unsure and tender and anxious for life to return to normal. He surprised me and was wonderful throughout the nine months, pro
fessing to find me “fertile and Rubenesque.” Bless his dishonest soul. But now he is having some trouble adjusting to fatherhood. In the beginning he was reluctant even to hold the baby. “I may drop him” was his only defence. He clearly believes that babies fall squarely into the female sphere. But this week he has held the baby twice (both times when Julian was asleep), and that is better than nothing. Virginia goes on about my soft, placid nature, the nobility of motherhood, and how some women are just born to it—like a cow meant for breeding. All meant as a dig at me.
As of today, my customary month of convalescence at home is over, and I am to rejoin the wide social world. I know Clive expects it and is looking forward to having me with him in the evenings. And so, supper tonight at Fitzroy Square with Virginia, Lytton, and Adrian. I must keep from mentioning the baby. It only sets Virginia off.
And—Clive has slept down the hall all this week as he cannot sleep through Julian’s crying in the next room. I miss his weight in the bed but cannot bear to move Julian farther away.
10 March 1908—46 Gordon Square (raining hard)
After a few false starts, we have formed a new group: The Play Reading Society. It will be good to speak of grown-up things. We actually formed it in December but were interrupted by Julian’s birth. So far I have loved The Relapse and disliked Milton. Much depends on the reader. Adrian and Lytton are wonderful, but Virginia gets very nasal and takes too many long pauses.
I suggested to Clive that we start with the raciest plays first, just to get any inevitable, squirmy, anatomical awkwardness out of the way, and he has repeated it to everyone. Lytton was delighted and promptly began to use the word semen around me as often as he could. I trumped him by swearing bugger when I spilt the sugar. I am liking the role of a risqué married woman.
And—Clive held the baby for twenty minutes this afternoon, until Julian began to cry, and he quickly handed him to the nurse.
Later
Lytton dropped by this evening. The conversation turned to sex, as it often has lately. In flat, medical, and gloriously unpretty words, we talked about copulation. My marriage to Clive and the incontrovertible proof of Julian have gained me admittance to the room. Lytton is full of graphic stories and rude details, and he is always having sex with someone we know, so that makes it especially interesting. He reports back about this person’s excessive furriness or that person’s foul breath. We sit up late and say wild, inappropriate things. Clive finds it hilarious and joins in with relish (he always has questions about the mechanics of sex between men), but Virginia grows uncomfortable and often asks Adrian (who is much more adept at such talk than I would have predicted) to take her home.
And—Clive only touches the baby when people are watching. When we are alone at home, he does not go into the little nursery next to our bedroom. It means that our paths rarely cross, as I never want to be where Julian is not. So be it. Clive will come in when he is ready. For now, he is mourning the loss of our two-ish life. I am impatient when I should not be, but I do not have time to manage Clive now. He is a grown man and ought to manage himself.
15 March 1908—46 Gordon Square (wet and cold)
“He sucks like the very devil, Nessa. How can you stand it? Don’t you want him to get some backbone and go and find his own food?” Virginia had insisted on following me to the nursery. I do not know why, as seeing me feed Julian repels her.
“It won’t be for much longer,” I said, calming her.
“Just as long as there is some Nessa left for me when the little monster has finished,” Virginia said.
It is true. I cannot nurse for much longer. My milk is drying up. Probably best. Virginia and Clive, initially tolerant of my outlandish desire to feed my own baby, are running out of patience. My life happens in three-hour instalments, and it drives them mad. I cannot go out to supper and the opera as it is longer than three hours. I can go to supper in Bloomsbury but not in Chelsea as it takes too long to get back. I refused an invitation for a Saturday to Monday at Desmond and Molly’s the other day as I did not want to leave Julian. I can see how it is trying for them. There is talk of a Stephen and Bell family holiday in Cornwall this spring, so we will have plenty of time together then.
And—I feel the much-put-off visit to Clive’s family in Wiltshire is imminent. So far I have pleaded cold weather. I am dreading it. It will be ghastly.
16 March 1908—46 Gordon Square
On Tuesdays, Virginia and Adrian are taking German lessons with a Miss Daniels. I thought they would call her “Fräulein,” but apparently she is from Surrey. I wish I could get more enthusiastic about that language, but the inborn gruffness of it does not sit well with me. Virginia occasionally practises her irregular verbs on Julian, and I wish she wouldn’t, as it alarms him. But at least she and Adrian can talk about Goethe and Rilke. It is good for them to do something together.
Later
Just home from supper at Fitzroy Square. I did not think it was possible, but they seem to be keeping an even more informal house than ours. Virginia never dresses in the evening any more, and the house is thick with cigarette smoke. Wombat is not house-trained and “performs” all over the carpet. Messy.
Supper was not served until nine, and then, inexplicably, it turned out to be herrings and melon. Walter Headlam read aloud to Virginia from his new translation of Aeschylus, Lytton has a cold and drank cough mixture under a blanket, and Henry Lamb arrived with green oil paint in his hair. Desmond appeared after midnight and was hungry, so Adrian brought him scrambled eggs in the drawing room.
Tuesday 17 March 1908—46 Gordon Square
Elsie the new nurse started today. She was a great success with Julian and very firm with me. Her meaty forearms are straight out of Dickens. Clive insisted we hire her. He says he wants me to have time to paint. “It is time to get back to our normal life, Nessa,” he keeps telling me. “But this is our normal life now,” I answer.
Saturday 21 March 1908—46 Gordon Square (four pm already)
Tonight we are giving our first party since Julian. I am behind and distracted. I have still not spoken to Sophie about the sandwiches nor to Maud about the drawing room. It has not been used in weeks, and needs a good going-over.
Even later (one am)
I was terrified we would wake the baby. But he was two floors up, and Clive was right, he slept right through it. We played the gramophone and danced. The Grizzly Bear, the Turkey Trot, and the Bunny Hug. Even Lytton got up out of his chair and stomped and growled and grizzled and clucked. Saxon wanted to dance the old-fashioned Irene Skipping Rope but we said no.
And—London is dismal in March, and Clive thinks we need a change. There has been more discussion of taking a holiday in Cornwall. I suggested St. Keverne or St. Mawes or even Polperro, but Virginia wants St. Ives. St. Ives without Thoby.
UNION POSTALE UNIVERSELLE
CEYLON (CYLAN)
22 March 1908
Kandy, Ceylon
Lytton,
Julian. For the Goth? Good. Not that he will be likely to have much of the Goth about him. I am sure this baby will soon be saturated with Clive’s aggressively Francophile bonhomie and by next year will be able to choose wine, discuss art, and speak French better than either of us.
I am not surprised Adrian is a talented reader. He was always quietly theatrical. I also imagine Virginia can easily hold an audience. I remember her low musical voice. Does Saxon actually read aloud? Difficult to picture.
Yours,
Leonard
HRH KING EDWARD VII POSTAL STATIONERY
Monday 30 March 1908—46 Gordon Square
Just back from 29 Fitzroy Square. Adrian and Virginia are not a natural domestic fit. The atmosphere is not breezy and comfortable but rather tight and unsaid, and the air around Virginia crackles with irritation. Poor Adrian. I wish they would find someone else to move in to cut the tension.
Elsie had a toothache so I left her here and took Julian to visit Virginia. It was awful. I held him and r
ocked him and bounced him, but he still fussed, and Virginia soon adopted a martyred expression. I walked him in slow blunt squares around the room. Virginia said I was making her dizzy. Fortunately Clive called in for me and told Virginia amusing stories that gave her the opportunity to make witty and incisive observations.
I was left undisturbed to cope with Julian. When he is uncomfortable, I cannot keep my thoughts on the spinning conversational plates. They get tossed my way and I let them crash to the ground. Finally Clive put me in a cab. Best I went home alone. Julian’s crying unsettles him anyway.
And—I have sent the cheque and signed the lease. We are going to take Trevose View in Cornwall again next month. Virginia and Adrian will go down early, and Clive and I will follow after a short stay with his parents in Wiltshire. I cannot bear that my baby will be introduced to wall-mounted stag heads before he is introduced to Manet and Schubert.
Later
Clive stayed on to supper at Fitzroy Square and came home after the baby was asleep. We curled onto the sofa and gossiped. I love that my husband is an avid, unabashed gossip. Only Lytton outdoes him. He retold the stories he told at Fitzroy Square and made me feel missed and wanted. Apparently Virginia has been asked to write several more articles for the Times Literary Supplement. And so she has decided to give up her Morley College teaching and concentrate on writing. Odd that she did not mention it when I saw her this afternoon.
