Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  10 May

  Mr Messenger has been replaced by Mr Robert Rigg. He is younger, and quite different. He is from somewhere in the north of England and has worked on a settlement in Liverpool. His lack of knowledge of our area will surely be a handicap, but then he can learn as I had to and in no time at all the streets will become all too familiar. Mavis is rather taken with him. She whispered to me, when she brought the tea round, that she thought him handsome and asked if I agreed. I said I supposed so, to please her, since she so likes people to agree with her, but I can’t say I truly care for his kind of looks. He is quite foreign-looking, with black hair and a dark moustache, and is rather slim, though not weedy. I noticed he has lovely hands, unusual for a man, with long fingers. I wonder if he plays the piano.

  12 May

  Mr Rigg asked me to go with him today on his visit to the Roper family. I was not surprised to be asked. Mrs Roper is well known to assault social workers, especially men, and then she accuses them of interfering with her, which is quite ludicrous but has to be treated as serious. Robert, he says I am to call him Robert not Mr Rigg, seemed rather nervous at first. Mr Messenger was confidence itself, so Robert’s manner seems all the more striking. Doris and Gloria wonder how he came to be a social worker at all, and one senior to us. But he is good at his job, I realised today. He is kindly, unlike Mr Messenger, and sympathetic, but ultimately quite firm. When Mrs Roper began on her usual long list of insults about every authority she could think of, he stopped her and gently told her that abuse would get her nowhere, and that she’d be much better off letting him help her fill in the forms instead of tearing them up as she has done up to now. He was quite unbothered by all her children milling about and roaring, and even lifted the 2-year-old on to his knee which, considering the child clearly has impetigo, was hardly wise. Mr Messenger would never have let her near him, especially as she was not wearing any knickers and Mrs Roper doesn’t know the meaning of toilet training. Robert was lucky not to get drenched. The forms took an age to complete, but Mrs Roper was pleased with herself for co-operating, and even more pleased when Robert assured her she would get some money to clothe the children and that he would try to get the damp which runs down her walls seen to and the infestation of cockroaches dealt with. I only hope he can manage it.

  14 May

  Robert asked me today if I liked walking. I said I did. He said he didn’t know London and wondered where there was somewhere to walk that was pleasant and green and easy to get to. I laughed and rattled off a list of all the parks in which he could walk; and he rather shyly wondered if perhaps I would show him my favourite park to walk in. I could hardly refuse. So tomorrow I am to take him to Richmond. I am not sure it is my favourite park, I haven’t been there often, but it has the best and longest walks.

  15 May

  A long day out with Robert. The weather was lovely and the park looked beautiful, all green and lush, and we saw lots of deer. Robert was impressed; he said he couldn’t believe a city like London had such countryside on its outskirts. He walks quickly, with long strides, and looks about him keenly, spotting birds and knowing their names, and admiring the trees. He says he loves the country, so I felt I could ask him why in that case he had come to London. He said the post was offered to him, but he didn’t say how, and that he thought he needed the experience of trying to deal with the very worst problems. There was nothing preachy about how he said it, though.

  We went to a café after walking for nearly two hours and had tea and scones. He asked me a bit about myself but didn’t press me too much and I got away with telling him the bare minimum. I don’t know why I wanted to be fairly reserved, but I did. I did admit I had once been a teacher, though, and it turned out so had he, briefly, and that he’d come into social work for the same reasons. I didn’t tell him where I live. He lives in a bed-sitting-room in Vauxhall. He says it is all he can afford, and that moving from Lancashire was expensive. I wonder how old he is. He might be a little younger than I am.

  2 June

  Percy wants me to go on holiday with him, a walking holiday in Cornwall, following cliff paths right round the southern coast and staying in bed-and-breakfast places. I felt awful saying I would think about it. I have no holiday plans and I have never been to Cornwall, and Percy is my dearest friend and I love his company and we get on so well and there is no need to fear he would get ideas. He has known for ages now that, though I like him so much, love him even, in a sort of way, I am not attracted to him and nothing romantic can come of our friendship. There has never been any need to spell this out. But I hesitated, and still do.

  4 June

  I have accepted Percy’s invitation. His pale face flushed with pleasure and I couldn’t help being touched – to mean so much to someone! We go in a week’s time. There is no problem about taking my holiday so suddenly since no one else is going away then. Robert showed some curiosity about where I was going and with whom but I gave nothing away, except to say my destination was Cornwall. He said he is not taking any holiday till next year, which seems odd. We had a bit of chat about Hyde Park, which he has been exploring, and Regent’s Park, which is next on his list. He asked if I would fancy walking with him there on Sunday but I said I was busy. I am not busy, but I do not want to encourage him to believe I am always available.

  9 June

  Spent the day with Tilda and the children. I told her I was going on a walking holiday with Percy and she annoyed me by saying she felt sorry for him because I have kept him dangling all this time. I denied it angrily. Being angry was a mistake. It made Tilda think I was embarrassed and that she had hit the nail on the head. She asked why I didn’t just marry the poor man and get it over with and I had to say again that marriage with him was out of the question, I was not attracted to him. Tilda said, rather suggestively, you mean not like you were to Frank, and I said exactly. She stopped laughing and was quiet for a bit and then said attraction wasn’t everything and it might not last and I shouldn’t regard it as so important. I said I hadn’t. If I had, I would never have let Frank go. She nodded. I wonder if she is talking about herself and Charles. I never, or hardly ever, see them together, he is always at the hospital, so I cannot judge, but I have always thought they are devoted to each other. I would hate to find this is no longer true.

  10 June

  Packed today for the holiday. I have bought a proper knapsack, of the type Percy told me to get. It seems horribly heavy, though I have tried to keep the contents to a minimum. I have only put in one book – I must have one – which is Brook Evans. Maybe I will not need two thick sweaters or a spare pair of shoes, but I do not trust the weather. I am going to wear slacks. I asked Percy if he would be ashamed to be seen with a woman in trousers and he said not at all, in fact he thought it very sensible of me. I have packed a skirt for evenings, and one dress, in case we eat anywhere smart, though that is unlikely. Percy never thinks about food. He doesn’t care what he eats and never, as far as I know, goes to restaurants.

  14 June

  I am not the excellent walker I thought I was. So mortifying. I have to pretend to want to look at the view to make Percy stop, he tears along at such a great rate. Most of the time the paths are narrow and very near the edge of the cliff and so we walk in single file and it is like walking on one’s own much of the way. It is only when we have our packed lunch that we are together, which does make me wonder why Percy wanted a companion at all. In the places we have stayed overnight so far he has hardly needed my company either. They are quite humble bed-and-breakfasts, where everyone sits round the table together. Percy is not good at small talk and takes no part in general chat. And we go to bed so very early, being tired, especially me, too tired to read Brook Evans, and with him wanting to make early starts. I don’t know if I am enjoying this holiday or not. At least the weather is good.

  18 June

  Rain. Heavy rain, all day. I thought we might stay inside, but we had to leave the B & B by 10 a.m. We could have taken a bus to
Truro and looked round whatever it has to offer in the way of museums or such like, and even treated ourselves to a decent lunch. I did dare to suggest this but Percy looked astonished and asked where would the fun be in that. I wondered where the fun was in plodding through the rain and getting soaked. Percy said I’d find it exhilarating, a quite different experience. So I had to don waterproofs and follow him, or else make a scene and I did not want to do that. In no time at all the rain had found its way down my neck in spite of my hood. Ahead of me I could see Percy with no head covering at all, his hair plastered to his head and apparently enjoying it. We walked three miles in the first hour or so and I could not see a thing. As well as the rain there was a mist which did not lift until the afternoon. We had our lunch in an abandoned hut and though at first I was glad of the shelter I soon felt cold. I shivered and Percy put his arm round me and said he’d keep me warm. How could he when he was soaking wet himself? I suppose I sulked, and he became anxious and said he felt guilty and that if I wanted we could make our way onto the road and hitch a lift to our next stop. But pride made me refuse to give in. I said no, we would walk on, as had been planned.

  20 June

  Better weather, though still no real sun, and I have a cold. Percy says it is nothing, that by feeling my forehead he can tell I have not got a temperature and he has looked down my throat and announces it is not inflamed. I don’t care, I feel bunged up and seedy. I wonder if I should get the train home. But we have only four days to go and I will not give in.

  23 June

  Last day, and wonderful sun. Felt well and cheerful for the first time in a week. The route today was easy, and so pretty, and for once Percy did not stride ahead but positively slowed to an amble and we had lunch outside at a pub and sat there for ages with a beautiful view of the bay before us. I suppose this is how I had thought it would be, sauntering along and spending time sitting in the sun eating and drinking and admiring the view. Who would’ve thought Percy would be so tough. He was very thoughtful today, and I said, a penny for your thoughts, as we sat there. He said he could not believe all this could ever be threatened. I asked what he meant by ‘this’ and he said the English way of life, the peace and serenity of areas like this. I was puzzled, and a little slow on the uptake, and said I couldn’t see how it could be. This bay, this pub, this little village had been like this for centuries and surely always would be, and the people here, I was sure, didn’t feel threatened at all. Percy said then they should because with Hitler’s rise to power in Germany everything could change. I don’t know why he had to mention Hitler on such a beautiful day. It made me cross. I think I have had enough of Percy for the moment. I realise I am looking forward to going home. I wonder if he is. I am sure I have been a terrible disappointment to him.

  24 June

  Home to London. The train was almost empty for half the journey and then it filled up. We were alone in our carriage for the first two hours and I was settling down to read, thinking how wonderful to have such peace, when Percy began to talk. He asked if I had enjoyed the holiday and there didn’t seem much point in lying, considering I had been asked a direct question, so I lowered my book and said I thought he knew the answer to that, which was that I’d enjoyed only some of it. How could I have enjoyed those days of rain, and having a cold, surely he didn’t expect me to? He stared at me and I had a dreadful premonition of what he was going to say . . . Did I realise, he said, we had been friends, quite close friends, for over two years and that some people might think that significant. I said, Don’t, Percy, you know how I feel, but he shook his head and said, I have to say it, I can’t put it off any longer: I love you Millicent and I want you to be my wife. I closed my eyes and I know a sigh, or something like it, escaped my lips. It was not like refusing Frank because I’ve never felt for Percy what I felt for Frank. This should have made a refusal easier but it didn’t, it made it worse. How could I say to Percy that I wasn’t in the least attracted to him, or even that these last two weeks had shown me I’d been deluded to think we got on so well. Feebly, I said I didn’t want to marry anyone. I said, I do like you, Percy, you know that, and I admire you, but there has to be more than that to a marriage. Does there? he said. I was speechless. I echoed him, repeating, Does there? incredulous. He said, I think liking and admiring and getting on with someone is a good basis for marriage. What about love? I asked, faintly.

  He laughed then and said, did I mean sex, very abruptly, almost spitting out the word. And I grew bolder and said yes, I did, I meant sex and love and passion. But he said how could anyone know about all that until they were married and tried it; that we might be very passionate together and that on his part, if desire was anything to go by, we would be. There didn’t seem any point then in holding back. I looked him straight in the eye and said I had experienced passion and knew I would not find it with him. At that moment, our carriage door into the corridor opened and a woman with two children came in. The relief for me was overwhelming. There was such a bustle with the mother settling her children it was impossible for Percy to speak, and I took up my book pointedly. The words swam before my eyes but I kept it in place for a good ten minutes and at the end of that time, when I looked up, Percy had left the carriage. I felt anxious about him and was glad when he returned, looking very pale and tense but composed.

  There was no further opportunity to speak until we had arrived at Paddington. As we walked down the platform I said I was sorry but he stopped me. He asked if I was going to get a taxi and when I nodded, he said in that case he’d say goodbye, and he held out his hand very formally. I couldn’t bear it and moved to embrace him but he shrugged me off and walked away very quickly. Oh God. I will have to write to him and apologise and ask him to forgive me, but for what, for being honest? I never wanted to hurt him, and never would have done if he had not forced my hand. Surely he cannot argue that I led him on. I suppose that what will really hurt is that he knows now that I have been with someone else. I never concealed Frank from him, it was just that he never knew about him, and why should he? Perhaps if he also knew I had broken with Frank it would help. He could label me a complete hussy then and be done with it. What an awful holiday. I must have been insane ever to agree to go on it, and yet I did that out of a sort of pity, without self-interest, but no one, least of all Percy, would believe that now. Thank heaven I was never put in Naomi’s situation or I am sure Percy would have acted like Caleb Evans.

  *

  The book Millicent was reading on the train, and which she’d chosen as her one book to take on holiday with Percy, was Brook Evans, a novel by Susan Glaspell, published five years previously in 1928, by Victor Gollancz. Millicent was probably attracted to it despite herself, because it was hailed as a wonderful love story, with a heroine, Naomi, who tries to stay true to her own passionate nature even though her lover is killed and, pregnant with his child, she is forced by her shocked parents to marry the kind but dull Caleb Evans whom she finds physically repugnant.

  After this, she mentions writing once to Percy but doesn’t reveal what she wrote and doesn’t mention whether he replied. He seems to have gone out of her life even more suddenly and completely than Frank did. Robert Rigg, on the other hand, starts to become a major factor in her life but all the entries about him are very guarded. This, it is clear, is not the sort of relationship she has had before. Despite her first impression, and her feeling that she was not attracted to him, she confesses he has grown on her and that she does now find him physically attractive, but there appears to be no intimacy between them. The link is their joint work. Robert is her immediate superior and she grows to admire his direction. He is not political, as Percy was, but on the other hand is knowledgeable about politics. It is through Robert that she becomes mildly involved in the Peace Pledge Union (a movement begun in 1934 when war in Europe was thought imminent after Hitler became Dictator). They go together to several demonstrations and she mentions that they read Peace News as well as pamphlets such as Aldous Huxley’
s case for pacifism: ‘What Are We Going To Do About It?’ All this time, Millicent gets no nearer knowing much about Robert’s background, or why such an attractive man is unattached. Then, towards the end of 1935, she makes a startling discovery.

  10 November 1935

  STAYED LATE AT the office with Robert, trying to work out what to do about the Thompson family. Mavis positively leered at me as she left and I said I was staying to have a meeting with Robert – Staying late with Dreamboat again, are you? she said. I wish she wouldn’t. She knows perfectly well that there is nothing between Robert and me. Nothing romantic. She makes me cross, and then I become flushed with irritation, and she interprets this as a guilty blush. It is infuriating. Robert has never even held my hand let alone tried to kiss me. That is another puzzle to Mavis, of course. She puts it in her usual crude way: is he a Nancy-boy? All because he shows no interest in any woman in the whole building and this, declares Mavis, is unnatural, especially as so many women show a great interest in him. I am sure he is not what she thinks but, in her maddening way, she has a point. He does seem very detached. He never flirts, and turns any attempt to flirt with him away. I go over in my mind all the time I have spent in his company and realise I have never seen him notice a girl, his eyes have never wandered after anyone however beautiful. It is as though he has trained himself not to notice. I think that is the key to him: restraint. I wonder what he would be like if he let himself go. I expect Mavis wonders too. I am as bad as she is.