Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  *

  4 June

  Robert follows events in Spain so closely, but I am afraid they bore me. I know it is wrong to admit this but I can’t help it. Daphne is as bad (or good) as Robert. She is sure a European war is going to break out and Robert agrees. They both become so excited and worked up talking about the probability of Hitler overrunning some little country and of us having to declare war. They both say they would join up at once. I asked Daphne what she would join. I didn’t even know women could join the armed forces. She and Robert then argued about whether women could or could not be sent on active service. I don’t think either of them knows half as much as they pretend to. I say nothing, just listen. I expect they consider me unpatriotic and maybe I am, and selfish. I do see things only from my own personal point of view. It is what affects me that counts. Is that so very wrong? Robert thinks so. But I am happy, and I don’t want to think of anything spoiling my happiness.

  16 July

  Such lovely summer days, but I can’t take more time off to enjoy them. Robert doesn’t seem to mind being cooped up in London but I do and yet my flat is quite airy with big sash windows, and he has only that dreadful stuffy room which he goes on refusing to give up, though for all the time he actually spends in it these days he might as well. He is so stubborn. He says he is quite content to continue as he is but would not blame me if I were not. This made me angry, and we quarrelled, about what he meant. It is our first real quarrel and it upset me. I said it sounded as if he was encouraging me to part with him and that he can only be doing that because he wants to part with me. He said that was nonsense, and that all he meant was that he would understand if I wanted a more settled future with someone else because he cannot give it to me. In a temper, I asked how recently he had requested a divorce from Doreen; not, I insisted, that I cared about marrying, but being still married to her seemed to be his excuse for not moving in with me. He went quite white and asked, was I insinuating that he was a liar? It was very upsetting. I am afraid I wept a little.

  17 July

  Hardly slept. Robert went back to his dingy room and I tossed and turned all night. I hate to think of us quarrelling. I thought and thought about the start of it, and that made me go over and over what he’d said about whether I was happy the way things are. He didn’t exactly say that, but near enough. I suppose the answer is that however much I try to be, I am not. I want Robert to live with me. I would be willing to face the consequences, even hurting and shocking Mother, if he would live with me. He has asked many times if I do not want children and seems puzzled when I tell him that though I like children, some children that is, it does not distress me to think I may never have any. At 35 I am probably almost too old already anyway, and I’ve grown used to preventing them. I would never have a child without being sure of its father’s support, and I told Robert that. It is too hard and awful to be an unmarried mother, as he knows from the pitiful cases we have seen. I wouldn’t wish that fate on a child, or on myself. Robert worries constantly about accidents and my becoming pregnant. I tell him I know what I am doing and have taken care of myself from the beginning, but he can never quite believe me even after all this time. He presses and presses me to say what I would do if I did become pregnant and I don’t like him doing this. I don’t know what I could do. I would be too afraid to have the kind of abortion I have heard about and I would not know how to have the safe kind, if such a thing exists. Maybe Daphne would know, or Tilda. I suppose I would have to have the baby, and that is what Robert is getting at. It is odd that this never bothered Frank.

  1 August

  Weekend in Brighton. Mother is missing Grace dreadfully, though she is of course pleased she is doing so well. She wonders if I think Grace will come home or settle in London and I had to say I had no idea though really it is obvious that Grace will never go home. Tilda says she has loads of admirers and is never in. Mother does not look well. She has lost weight and seems to have no energy. I think she should see a doctor but she refuses, claiming only to be tired, and reminding me she is 63. Alfred’s wife has had her baby some time ago but has only just had him christened. Mother is scandalised by the name: Julian. She says it is not a family name and to her sounds unmanly and affected. I hope she has not passed on this opinion to Ethel. Had a long, long walk before I left, and couldn’t help recalling the walks I had here with Percy. It seems such a long time ago, and so sad that our friendship ended as it did. I wonder if Percy ever found the woman he needed. Certainly I was not the right one, and I never thought I was, not for one minute. I wished Robert was with me. When I am not with him I talk to him all the time in my head.

  5 August

  Lunch at Tilda’s. Charles was at home for once, looking horribly tired and older than when I last saw him, but then I suppose that is ages ago. He seemed vague and abstracted and got irritable with the children who really are sweet, especially Florence. Florence asked me very solemnly if I minded being a spinster and was I very sad not to have a husband. She was sharply reprimanded by Charles, but I laughed (I hope it didn’t sound forced) and said I wasn’t in the least sad and that being a spinster had its advantages. Tilda said, Yes, I’m sure, and banged the dishes around a bit unnecessarily as she cleared the table. Before I left, she took me aside and said she had something to tell me. She is expecting again. I was so surprised. Florence is nearly 11 and Jack nearly 7 and I’d imagined her family complete. She doesn’t know how it happened: she took every precaution and made no mistakes, she says. She is three months gone and, even in spite of her religious beliefs, admitted to having tried every reasonable means to dislodge this baby, but nothing worked. Charles knows of a doctor in Holland who could abort the baby but it would be very difficult and expensive to arrange and besides she could not bring herself to go through with it. So I am lumbered, she said, tears in her eyes. She hasn’t told the children yet, or indeed anyone, but is hoping Grace will help out when the time comes. I immediately said I would arrange time off and come to help as well, and really my heart did not sink as much as it would once have done at the thought. Poor Tilda. She is not young either and that worries her. She knows too much about the dangers of a woman nearly 40 having a baby.

  7 August

  Robert said I was very quiet and subdued today. He asked if I was feeling ill and I saw the dread in his face which for a moment made me wish to be cruel and pretend that I might be pregnant. I don’t know why such evil thoughts come into my head. But I put him out of his misery by telling him about Tilda. But it was a mistake, because he at once took her fate as a dreadful warning to us, saying if this could happen to a woman who is a nurse and whose husband is a doctor it could happen to the most careful of people and that he had been saying this all along and I never seemed to heed him. What do you want me to do, then, I asked him, stop making love, is that the solution? Maybe we should use other methods as well as the one we already do, to be doubly sure, he suggested. It is all so sordid. For the first time, I thought maybe I did not want Robert to stay the night. I felt tired of his fretting and his worthiness.

  8 August

  Just as I was going to bed there was a telephone call from Esther. Mother has had a heart attack and is in hospital. I must go first thing in the morning.

  11 August

  The doctor says Mother is out of danger, but her blood pressure is higher than he would wish and she must rest and take things very easy from now on. Esther sighed and said she supposed that would mean more work for her, but it couldn’t be helped. I felt furious with her, but the truth is that were it not for Esther, I would have to give up my own work, and Robert, and come home to look after Mother. Esther’s boys are so noisy and not nearly as well brought up as Tilda’s children. They racket around the house roaring and banging and I’m sure make Mother’s head ache. I shushed them at one point today and Esther was annoyed and said this was their home and it was natural for boys to be lively, and if I had children of my own I might understand. George doesn’t seem to have an
y influence at all. When I think of how Father’s ‘stop that at once’ was instantly obeyed by all of us, I cannot believe how lacking in authority my brother is.

  12 August

  I am going back to London tomorrow but will come down again at the weekend. Mother quite understands. She looked so sweet today, propped up in bed and wearing her best bed-jacket and with some colour in her poor cheeks at last. She protests against being kept in bed and says she feels a fraud and wishes to be up and helping Esther. I was pleased and relieved when Esther herself said she was managing perfectly and needed no help and Mother was to stay put. She is not so bad really. I am grateful to her, and said so, and she seemed satisfied and said she would see Mother stayed in bed a while yet.

  14 August

  At least Robert seems to have missed me. I had told him which train I intended to catch but since never in a million years did I expect him to meet me I thought it of no consequence when I decided to get a later train. By the time I arrived he had been in Victoria Station three hours, meeting two previous trains, and had begun to imagine something had happened. I got off the train in something of a trance, still thinking about Mother, and feeling low about her, and I almost didn’t see Robert walking towards me with his arms open. It was the most lovely shock and resolved quite a few doubts in my mind. He was very sympathetic about Mother, prompting me to ask him about his own. I’d asked before about his family but had got little out of him beyond the fact that both his parents were dead and he was an only child, or rather that he had had a younger brother who had died as a baby. But he spoke tonight a bit about his mother, saying they had never got on. She had great hopes for him and he hadn’t realised them, and she had been against his marriage and never spoke to Doreen or made her welcome. He said his mother had been a snob and that what she mainly had against Doreen was that she was a shop assistant. I laughed, and told him about my own spell in a shop, which somehow I never had done. It struck me as so sad that Robert hadn’t got on with his mother and had felt almost no affection for her. If I had a son and he confessed such a thing I would be distraught. I can’t bear it when children don’t love their parents.

  15 August

  Telephoned Esther. Mother is doing well. The doctor called today and says she may get up for a little while tomorrow.

  *

  But two days later, Mrs King has another heart attack and dies before Millicent (or Tilda) can get there. It grieves Millicent greatly that it was Esther who was there at the end. She notes this death tersely, but there is no gap in her diary as there was when her father died. She does say how much she loved her mother but her love is loaded with guilt because she feels she has not been a good daughter – ‘I have always thought too much of myself.’ She goes on to record matter-of-fact details about her mother’s will, but there is no account of the funeral (except to note that it occurred on 20 August).

  George is left the Brighton house, as expected, and everything else is divided among his siblings. Because of her second husband’s wealth, Mrs King (though she ought properly to be referred to as Mrs Marshall) has left a good deal of money, mostly in stocks and shares. Millicent now finds herself in possession of £5,000 in cash plus some investments. In 1936, this was a small fortune. She decides to buy a house, and does so in October, choosing to move nearer to Tilda in Primrose Hill. The most significant part of the move is that Robert is now persuaded to come and live on the top floor of her house. The fact that he has what amounts to a self-contained flat within Millicent’s house seems to satisfy his qualms. But colleagues at work, when they discover his new address – which he has tried to conceal but isn’t able to for long – quickly put two and two together. So does Millicent’s sister Tilda.

  *

  2 November

  Tilda has disappointed me. I know she is not well, and I should make allowances, but I never expected her to be so mealy-mouthed. I had been looking forward to her meeting Robert and thought she would be glad for me and it was going to be such a relief not having to hide him from her or anyone now that poor Mother cannot be hurt and I needn’t pretend not to have a lover. But Tilda was shocked when I told her about him and looked so cold and unloving when she asked how long this affair had been going on. Well, I suppose it is an affair, that is the correct term, but the way she said it made it sound disgusting. She softened a little when she saw I was upset and said it was just that she couldn’t bear to think I was entangled with a married man who couldn’t get a divorce. She said a divorced man would’ve been bad enough but at least then we could have married. Then she said something I couldn’t believe. She doesn’t think Charles would want Florence and Jack to know, or to meet ‘this Robert’. She said they might get the wrong idea. They go to Sunday School, and Florence goes to church, and Charles and she do too, if not often, and she claims they try to be good Christians. When I said it was the first I had heard of it, things got nasty and we argued over how Christian she and Charles really are. I felt maddened, but the sight of Tilda’s huge stomach calmed me down. I knew I had to be calm for her sake. She hasn’t even met Robert. This is what he has always warned me would happen, of course.

  15 November

  Went round to visit Tilda, wondering if I would be allowed in her house now that she regards me as a Scarlet Woman, but she was welcoming and we had a nice chat, at first. Then after tea, she asked if I had told Grace what I had told her. I said did she mean about Robert and she flinched at his name and said yes. I said I hadn’t seen Grace lately, but that I would tell her the moment we met again which I expected would be soon. Tilda said I should think about protecting Grace, who was very impressionable and only 19. I stared at her in astonishment. Really, all this was going too far. Then Tilda was a little apologetic but she said she was sure Mother wouldn’t want Grace to know I was living with a married man who couldn’t divorce. I resented her bringing Mother into it and was going to say so, but she rushed on to express anxiety about how Grace was living anyway, and wishing she hadn’t bought a flat of her own with Mother’s money, because she wasn’t old enough and seemed to be in with a fast crowd. I said I was sure that Grace could look after herself, just as I had done, but Tilda shook her head and said Grace was quite giddy and not at all how I had been. Somehow we had got off the subject of my scandalous liaison and I made sure we stayed off it.

  10 December

  No one can quite believe it. This evening the King broadcast to the nation to say he was giving up the throne to his brother because he wasn’t allowed to marry the woman he loved, a divorcée, an American called Mrs Simpson. I only heard it by accident. It was so sad, hearing him say ‘the woman I love’. I felt such rage against whoever it is who will not let him marry her. What is so awful about being a divorcée? It all comes down to the fact that our King is head of the Church, and the Church can’t condone it. Robert was not as affected by the broadcast as I was. He just shrugged, and said it did not surprise him: the establishment always wins.

  11 December

  Am I the only one who feels sorry for the King and is angry about him being forced to abdicate? I cannot believe the opinions I have heard all day. Mavis declares Mrs Simpson is a trollop who just wanted to be Queen, and even Doris, who is usually so quiet, said we couldn’t have had our King taking used goods. I was incredulous, and spoke up for both the King and Mrs Simpson, and Mavis sniggered and said that of course I’d be prejudiced in her favour: it was only natural in my circumstances. I had to leave the office. I did not dare ask her what she meant and then have everything come out, which is what she wants. I wonder how she has found out. Even though I left the room, and felt agitated, half of me was glad.

  4 January 1937

  GLAD TO BE back at work. Such a sad Christmas and New Year, the first without Mother. Tilda tried to rally the family but it didn’t work. I wish she had managed to find some real Christmas, Christian spirit and invite Robert to Christmas dinner. I still wonder how she could have imagined I would come without him. But we didn’t hav
e a very happy Christmas either which is why I have hardly written in this diary. We both had flu, myself worse than Robert, and everything seemed dismal. Then Robert had a letter from Doreen which upset him. He wouldn’t let me read it. I don’t know that I wanted to, but all the same I think he should have offered to show it to me. Keeping it to himself created an atmosphere. Well, we are over that now, and it is a new year.

  1 February

  Tilda gave birth today – to twins! How Mother would have loved it. She was always hoping twins would pop up again in the next generation. They are a boy and a girl. How clever of Tilda, doubling her family and keeping it even at the same time. But it was a shock. Nobody had known there were two of them. Charles seemed more shocked than anyone and a little dismayed. Both babies are very healthy and for twins a good weight, each just under 5 lbs. I stayed the night with Florence and Jack, and took them to see their mother and the twins very briefly, only five minutes. Jack was delighted with his new brother and sister but Florence was rather quiet, I thought. She wanted to know how Tilda would manage two babies. I said she would have help and manage very well and that she herself could be a great help. I knew as soon as I’d said it, that this was the wrong thing to say. In a flash I recalled how I myself resented helping Mother when Michael was born and even more so when Grace arrived.