Private Papers

by Margaret Forster

  But, of course, having that money did alter our relationship. I had never discussed money with my children. I hope I never moaned about it. After Trevor and Michael left, Rosemary complained bitterly about having to have lodgers and said she hated them, why did we have to have them. I replied, truthfully, that the money was useful. It paid for luxuries, like holidays. We were not poor, I said, but nor were we even moderately rich. We had enough, if we were careful. Rosemary protested she hated being careful, what was money anyway, she hated it, it was horrible. But I was pleased to notice some small consideration, as she grew older, in the way in which she asked for money when she needed it. She took a Saturday job when she reached the sixth form, as a waitress in an Italian icecream parlour, and seemed proud of earning her own spending money. When she started at Central and wanted to have her own room somewhere she was diffident about the finances of it, about whether I could afford to pay her rent. Luckily, she qualified for a full grant which covered most of her expenses. This pleased her, but she still saw herself as beholden to me. In the Algarve, on that holiday, I realized this was at an end. She felt truly independent and that independence was based on having money in the bank. Now, she did not feel beholden. She was a free woman and expected to live like one.

  It would have been quite foolish of me to protest about Rosemary sleeping with Tony without being engaged or married, equally silly to say I did not like the effect on Emily who was not quite thirteen. In theory, I did not disapprove of premarital sex, so long as there were no children. It was not, in the late fifties, by any means common for young people openly to sleep together, but I had never supposed it did not go on. Again, in theory, the freeing of taboos pleased me. But it was not easy for me to accept. I had been brought up in an old-fashioned institution and married afterwards to a highly conventional man. I found it difficult to watch my daughter rebel against a tradition I myself had followed and the hardest part of all was watching her do it and knowing she had no idea of the damage she was doing to herself. At sixteen, she was made for sex. It was as crude and simple as that. All the vulgar hateful phrases about ‘being ripe for it’ were so shockingly appropriate. Unlike Jess, Rosemary did not long for love and companionship – what she craved was sex. Then a young man called Alan gave it to her and her disillusionment was total. She did not conceal what was happening from me. She told me, defiantly, that she was tired of trying not to sleep with Alan when she wanted to. (At the time she had known him about three weeks, I think.) She was going ahead. I was appalled at my own distress. I tried to reason with her, to ask her what kind of love affair it could possibly be, when they were both still at school, when neither of them had any place to go. I said I would not have Alan staying in our house. And I told her that she must go to our doctor and consult him about contraception, with my permission, because if there was one thing I would never, never forgive, it was an illegitimate baby.

  What a terrible start it was, how different from my imagination. It was not that I tortured myself with erotic images of Rosemary and Alan but that I was haunted by the lovelessness of it all. Their affair was not worthy of the name. It was merely a coupling between two people who found each other physically irresistible, nothing of Romeo and Juliet about it, not in the least. Perhaps I myself was the result of such barbarity. Perhaps Jess had been. I cried the first night she went to stay with him, when his parents were away, but I did not try to stop her. She looked so vulnerable as she left the house, smiling, excited, a little embarrassed, a little thrilled with her own daring. When she came back she was offhand. Nobody, least of all me, asked if she had had a nice weekend. Every time Alan appeared at our door I wanted to hit him. I cannot even remember now what he looked like, but then I saw his face leering everywhere. In the end, Rosemary dropped him. Six weeks I think he lasted. He used to ring up and she would tell us to say she was not in, in the classic fashion, and I began to feel sorry for him. He had not suspected quite how ruthless she could be. And I swear she was ashamed to have made so much of so little. All she had scored was a technicality and she knew it. Her virginity could not have been worth losing —

  *

  Of course it had been worth losing. I should have lost it long before, the way girls do today. What a bore it was being a virgin. The very word makes me squirm, so prissy. Mother’s perfectly right: all I did think about was sex. It dominated every waking moment and entirely took over my dreams. And, as for Alan, he was useless, totally. He’d be finished so quickly it was hardly worth taking my clothes off. It wasn’t until I found Mick that I got any real relief. And that was what it was, such a relief to have sex properly and feel satiated. It calmed me. I could think about other things again, get some sense of proportion, of perspective. I found, looking back to those feverish pre-Mick days, that I despised Mother for her attitude. Lovelessness indeed: what had that to do with anything? I didn’t want love, last thing I wanted. I wanted sex. What on earth is wrong with that? She tried to make me feel cheap and disgusting and I hated her for it. And all the time, behind this ‘do you love this boy’ stuff, she was really flaunting her own perfect love affair with my father. Sex without love, she told me, was nothing. What a fool. Sex without love can be marvellous. Sex with love can sometimes be hell.

  *

  — and then there was a gap. Perhaps there were others but I never knew about them. In her final year at school she met Mick, much older than her, with his own place. He was a house decorator, a cocky, cheerful, energetic fellow, whose attraction was difficult to fathom. He played the saxophone and most of their time seemed to be spent sitting in pubs – I think Rosemary fell in love with those rather than Mick, with the ambience rather than the man. But I knew she was still confusing passion with love. I watched and observed and had almost become convinced that Rosemary was a different species from myself, that she was not interested in love, when in 1957 she brought Tony Morgan to the Algarve.

  Rosemary loved Tony. She was in love with him. This was perfectly plain within ten minutes of seeing them together. What was not so clear was whether Tony loved Rosemary. He was certainly not nearly so wrapped up in her as she was in him, something all of us saw. Whatever he wanted to do, she fell in with. No, she would say, she did not want to go to the market in Portimão and then Tony would say he’d like to and she would instantly change her mind. Whatever stupid scheme Tony came up with, she would applaud, and he was an expert at thinking up stupid schemes. It was his speciality, the sillier the better. Emily adored him and I admit he was very good with her, too good for Rosemary’s liking. It annoyed her to see Tony fooling about with Emily, throwing water over her and generally being boisterous. It annoyed her even more to find Celia and Tony had things in common. Tony played all sorts of instruments including the guitar and Celia, who had brought her oboe with her, used to improvise with him. We sat out on the veranda till late at night with Tony strumming away and Celia joining in. It was nice for her.

  In fact, the whole holiday was nice for Celia and Emily. I remember very little about Seb and Matthew except that their presence was important. They were quieter than Tony, they lacked his charisma, but they each had things to offer. Seb was sporty, played all the games I had struggled with for years and introduced Emily to surfing, though the waves were not really big enough. Matthew was a botanist. He was the most unlikely friend for Rosemary. Whereas Tony and Seb joined in, he was always on the outside, observing, like me I suppose. I could never quite make out why he had come, but I was not supposed to ask such boring questions. I was glad he had. The atmosphere was at times so raucous that without Matthew I would have found it quite unbearable. Tony had a radio in his van which was tuned to some incomprehensible station giving out loud pop music and, when we went on trips together, it drove me mad but the others loved it. They all sang to it and banged on the sides and roof of the van and screamed and laughed. I hated to be thought a kill-joy. I tried so hard to join in but I felt incongruous in such company. My age was a burden when we were all together. I f
elt sad. Nothing had ever brought home to me so violently the pathos of my own situation. I was forty-one, my children almost all grown up and about to leave home. I was left with the feeling that my life’s purpose had been achieved: I had brought my family up. They would not cease to be my family, but I could not expect to occupy the same position in their lives. What would happen next? What did women like me do? The louder Rosemary and her gang roared with laughter along the beach, down the hill, the louder and more insistent became my own questioning. I could not expect them to notice or —

  *

  Dear Christ, it hit us all in the face all the time like a stinging wet towel – Mother’s depression, Mother’s silence, Mother’s bloody maddening wistfulness. She was such a curse, so reproving and distant and aloof, and there was I, giving her what she had always wanted, a bloody great big family party with everyone happy. When else had she ever seen old Celia laugh all day? When had Celia’s great big solemn pudding of a face cracked with smiles and her cheeks, her huge white flabby cheeks, turned pink with pleasure? My, what that holiday did for Celia. She even came out of her regulation black swimming costume and into a bikini and, wow, how suddenly luscious she looked. Her body tanned beautifully and all that blonde hair came to life. I bet it was the best two weeks Celia ever had and, if she hadn’t been such a puritan, it would have been even better. Seb wanted to sleep with her straight away and she was definitely hot for him, but of course ‘it wouldn’t be right’, silly cow. It couldn’t have been righter. And, as for Emily, she was thrilled with her little self. Lolita had nothing on her. Twelve years old and just beginning to realize what it was all about, and three men amused by her and ready to flirt and encourage her, thinking all the time what a raver she would be in a few years’ time. She loved the action, the noise, the lack of any timetable: who wouldn’t after years of holidays with Mother?

  But yes, I hated it, I was miserable. ‘Whatever he wanted to do she fell in with.’ Yes, I did. Yes, I did pander to Tony’s every wish. Mother despised me and he despised me, but I couldn’t help it. I loved him and I knew he loved me: if people love each other why can’t they show it? What’s wrong with that? Tony found it ‘too much’. It made him feel crowded. That was why Seb and Matthew had had to come. He didn’t want to be alone with me all that time. He liked groups, crowds. And he got bored so quickly, with everything. My desire for change was nothing compared with Tony’s – he wanted to be up and off and round and about every five minutes. Almost any room gave him claustrophobia after an hour. He could never live in one place for long, preferring to kip down where he found himself. God knows why the idea of coming on a family holiday appealed to him. When I happened to moan about it, he jumped at it like one of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, said he’d love to be part of a family. Like Mother, he’d never had one. I don’t know why. Asking questions about the past was something he hated. He would say it wasn’t relevant, he was him, now, take it or leave it. I worried he didn’t understand about families, about Mother. I dreaded him offending or, even worse, hurting her. All the time I was on guard, sure he was going to shock her with some outrageous act. He might hit me and she would be appalled and not understand. Violence was violence to Mother, there were no extenuating circumstances, she wouldn’t understand Tony as I did. Theft was theft, too. She only had to see him nick some wine, or leave a restaurant without paying and she would be disgusted. Tony’s attitude to life was not Mother’s: she had no sense of humour, didn’t begin to appreciate why Tony ripped people off. If ever they got on to any discussion about how he lived, we would be in real trouble. Tony drew unemployment benefit as his right and saw nothing wrong with it, complained it was peanuts anyway. Next to illegitimate babies, Mother thought going on the dole, if you were young, fit and strong, the unforgivable sin. There is always a job, she would say primly, you can always wash dishes or scrub floors. Tony would have had hysterics.

  We had a meal up at Monchique, outside, at a funny little restaurant on a bend in the road, with a stupendous view all the way down to the coast. The meal took an hour to come and we drank ourselves stupid. It was so warm, the air smelled so pungently of eucalyptus, we were all in such good spirits after a great day. When the meal came, it was great plates of chicken piri-piri, mounds and mounds of it, all piled up, a jumble of legs and wings and quartered breasts. We fell on it like Robin Hood and his merry men, flinging the bones over our shoulders, eating faster and faster, calling for more cold wine and rough, vinegary bread. Mother sat at the end of the table, picking at a salad, head down. She was worried that we were throwing the bones around, about the mess we were making. Then Tony got on to the table and started dancing and we all clapped and jeered, and Emily got up beside him and he lifted her up so that she could hold on to the trellis affair overhead and swing. Mother was frantic. She stood up, pleaded with Tony, but nobody could hear her above the row. I was so tired of her. That face, the fussing, the absolute refusal to relax. ‘Oh, Mother for chrissake, stop it!’ I shouted. Nobody else heard me. She turned and went across the road to where the van was parked and disappeared into it. I could have cried. It wasn’t her age that held her back, it was everything else and most of all her sense of position. We offered her the chance to be herself and she didn’t even know who that was.

  The boys called her Penny. They were the only people who ever used any variation of her Christian name. Everyone else has always called her Mother or Mrs Butler. I couldn’t even think of anyone who called her Penelope except my godfather and he hardly counted because we never saw him. Not even Trevor and Michael had called her by her name. But Tony certainly wasn’t going to Mrs anyone. ‘What’s her name?’ he said to me and when I told him he nodded. He called her Penny the first day, casually, absolutely normally. Seb and Matthew automatically followed suit. I thought it was nice, friendly, but every time Penny was used she flinched. Who was this sunburned Penny, wearing so few clothes, doing so little work? Did she sing? Did she forget about the time? Mother wasn’t sure. She floundered about, nervous. I kept looking at her and thinking she looked interesting, worth knowing. I don’t think she had ever shown so much of her body to us children, even if her mind was still locked up. She had such a fine, intelligent face, such a direct gaze. Tony was amused and intrigued by her. I was terrified he would go too far and become familiar. Mother hated familiarity. She was always stiff and jumpy, do-not-touch-me written all over her. ‘Can’t be much fun for her,’ Tony said one night, ‘lying next door to us all night.’ I wished he wouldn’t say things like that, calling to my attention something I was already too well aware of. I didn’t enjoy sex that holiday. I couldn’t stand the thought of her listening. It fascinated Tony, in a prurient way, I felt, that Mother hadn’t had anyone since my father died. He couldn’t credit it. I told him repeatedly that I didn’t want to discuss it but he returned again and again to the subject. I raged at him, asked him why for fuck’s sake people like my mother were pitied because they had no lovers, it was wrong and unfair, just shut up. Poor Mother, eternal victim of speculation. It was unbearable, that holiday, to realize the extent of her sacrifice for us. I dreaded above all else her coming to the conclusion, as I had done long before, that she had wasted her life. I did not want those protective scales to fall from her eyes, it was too cruel.

  I wasn’t happy again till that awful holiday was over and I was sitting in the van looking out on the green fields of France as we made our way north. All I wanted to do was drive with Tony forever through foreign lands, singing, stopping when we wanted to eat and sleep, no ties. I thought of Celia and Emily sitting on either side of Mother in the train. I thought of them arriving home and resuming their boring structured lives. Not me. Sometimes we drove all night and slept all day, sometimes we ate and drank hugely, other days we fasted. It was an erratic progress, exhausting. And when we got back to London it was to nothing permanent. We didn’t even know where we would stay. All our stuff was in plastic bags in the back of the van. We would find somewhere, and the
n somewhere else, always makeshift. That cute little town house Mother saw me with would never materialize – she would have to wait for Celia to do the sensible thing. I would not trip out of it, terribly elegant in a smart suit, jangling the keys of my new Mini Minor, on the way to such an interesting job at the National Portrait Gallery or the Courtauld Institute. None of that was going to happen, nor the handsome husband like my father, nor the 2.5 children.

  As we crossed the Channel I said to Tony, ‘How about driving across America? I’ve got some money.’

  May 7th

  A COLD, BLUSTERY Bank Holiday. I hate Bank Holidays. Nothing to be disrupted but feel disrupted. Knew I would so had made plans. Very clever of me, love my own forethought. Got the eight o’clock train to Brighton. Walking along the sea front by ten, wonderfully invigorating. Flashes of sun, quite big patches of blue sky, strong wind making the waves scud along. At the West Pier crossed over to Bedford Square. The old Butler home covered in scaffolding. Sat in the square’s garden and looked up at the bow window where I spent so many happy hours. Did a few calculations, sitting there, entirely unsentimentally. Forty years ago today would have been sitting there, pregnant, staring at the sea, daydreaming about Oliver returning soon. Grandmother Butler would be shouting in the background, the children playing behind me. Felt so sad for my young self. Not for myself now, but my young self who had so much unhappiness ahead. But she, the young self, didn’t, doesn’t, feel connected with me. A peculiar sensation. How can I be so divorced from my young self? I think about her, study her in retrospect, and feel nothing, nothing except that kind of comfortable compassion one feels upon reading some touching story in a newspaper. Didn’t yearn to be back there, aged thirty. Didn’t want to be at that point again. Felt detached and also puzzled, not so much about what has happened to me since I was thirty, but about what has happened to my children. Cannot reconcile what they were then with what they are now. Doesn’t fit. The record I am making, writing, isn’t explaining it as I hoped. Good to have a day off from what I am finding exhausting work. Should I give it up? Sun came out quite strongly. Walked back to the Palace Pier. Odd that, as I sat on the end of the pier facing out to sea, I should find myself thinking my life began rather than ended when Oliver died. Left the pier. Zig-zagged my way back towards the station. Sat in a café and had tea and poached egg. Found myself staring out of the window into a second-hand furniture shop. The furniture spilled out on to the pavement. Wasn’t that Grandmother Butler’s mahogany wardrobe? How had I got rid of it in the end? Heaven knows. Of course, it wouldn’t be hers. Hundreds like it. Caught the four-something train back. A good day.