Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  1 December

  A better meeting tonight, and a very different collection of people. Not so many of my own age and some of them excellent speakers. One young woman, who reminded me of Connie, had obviously done some proper research and quoted all kinds of statistics to do with radioactivity which, though I didn’t take them all in, sounded impressive, not that I think any of us needed to be convinced that an H-bomb exploding would cause horrific and lasting damage. But I liked her combination of passion and logic. We applauded her wildly.

  13 May 1957

  Too exhausted last night even to think about writing in this diary, but I ought to have done because thinking about the events of yesterday kept me awake in spite of my exhaustion. I seemed still to be marching, in perfect time with complete strangers to my right and left. We were absolutely silent from the moment we set off, and except for our feet and the rustling of some of the black sashes we all wore there was no sound until it started to rain heavily and even then the noise as the rain hit the pavements in torrents only seemed to make our lack of noise more significant. I had dressed sensibly, wearing a long waterproof coat and wellington boots and a large waterproof hat with a wide brim which was a godsend because it not only kept my head dry but also my shoulders. I looked a sight, but I didn’t care. I’d made my sash out of black nylon, not very pretty, but it was light and even when sodden didn’t burden me. I tied it across my body and then in a bow at the side. It was incredible how, without much actual organisation, we all lined up, hundreds of women all together, and set off, those with banners mainly in the front. Most of these were crudely made, and the lettering on them soon began to run in the rain, but still the simple words Stop The Tests and Save Your Child could be read. I felt so proud of us all, making this silent, dignified protest prepared to march through London and get soaked and think it worthwhile. Most of the women were, I am sure, like me and had never done anything like this before. I tried to concentrate, as I marched, on the thought of those who had died in the last war but that was a mistake, it only choked me with emotion, and it was foolish because it is too late for them. We were marching for the next generation, for Connie and Toby, and Claudia and Sam, and their children. It was strange how, even surrounded by hundreds of others, I felt isolated, not in the least submerged in the crowd. We were all individuals, people of no consequence but not a mindless mob, not folk following the herd. We all knew why we were there. I heard onlookers say as we passed by, What are they doing, what is going on? and I thought how too often I have been in that position, not knowing what governments were doing in my name. I was tired of feeling bewildered and outraged and spineless. It helped yesterday to march in those atrocious conditions, and listening to the speakers when we got to Trafalgar Square I felt inspired to continue. The newspapers today say there were about 2,000 of us marching and even more standing in the Square.

  14 May

  Connie telephoned, highly delighted because she says she saw my photograph among the marchers in a newspaper. I didn’t see it myself, but she was adamant it was me and described my outlandish hat most convincingly. She said she was proud of me and that if she’d been at home she would have joined me. I like the idea of that, Connie and me, niece and aunt, two generations marching together. It was what I wanted to do as a girl, become involved in protests against war, but Father dissuaded me. I wonder what he would think of me now. He’d be scandalised, probably, he’d say I was making an exhibition of myself and that I should be at home, running my household like a dignified woman.

  15 May

  How famous I am becoming. Harry turned up at my door today, grinning from ear to ear and saying he’d come to ask for my autograph after seeing my photograph in the paper. He stayed for tea and became serious over it. He is such a thoughtful young man, and of course his terrible experiences in Korea have changed him. I asked him how he was feeling and he said he still has stomach problems but that he has recovered well, considering. Esther had told me that he hardly ever talks about it, and doesn’t like to be pressed, so I didn’t ask questions. He is going to agricultural college in the autumn, wants to be a farmer and in time take over the family farm. It was nice of him to call. Before he left, he seemed to linger in the hall, as though he was reluctant to go or wanted something. He stopped in front of the photograph I have hanging just behind the front door, of George on his 18th birthday. That’s Dad, isn’t it? he said, and I nodded. He stared at it for ages as though he couldn’t quite believe it. I’ve never really known what happened to him in the war, he said, just that he was injured and invalided out. I hesitated, not wanting to tell him anything George himself had not done. I said that yes, he’d been injured, shot, and had his arm broken, and he’d been gassed. Harry said nothing. I never guessed what he’d gone through till Korea, he said at last, and even then I wasn’t wounded. Now I know how he feels.

  25 May

  Went to visit Toby, on my day off, before his term ends. I am alarmed to hear he has changed his course from medicine to sciences. He has suggested I visit before, but somehow I’ve felt diffident about turning up, ye ancient maiden aunt, worrying that he might be embarrassed by me, though he’s never given the least hint of this. Anyway, I went and was glad, though at first memories of being there before, with Daphne, and thinking of all that had happened since to hopes and ambitions, well, it made me a little melancholic for a while. Hope Toby didn’t realise and that I managed to keep the melancholy out of my face. He has rather a poky room but the college itself is splendid. We walked along the backs and then had a picnic lunch. I’d said he was to choose a restaurant and I’d treat him but, surprisingly, he’d shopped and had a basket stuffed with treats and insisted we should have a picnic and then he’d take me in a punt on the river. Truth is, he isn’t very good at punting and I was sure we’d capsize, but no, he kept us afloat, just, though I hung rather grimly on to the sides.

  Toby doesn’t talk much. It seems to me that he used to be just as much of a chatterbox as Connie but now he has become rather quiet and rarely initiates any conversation. Would this have happened if Tilda had been alive? A silly thing to wonder, of course it would, his reluctance these days to talk has nothing to do with his mother’s absence. In fact, Charles was not much of a talker either. Charles was mentioned several times in the course of the day, twice by me, once by Toby. I shouldn’t have said his father would have been disappointed that he’d dropped medicine. I couldn’t help saying that he was looking more and more like his father – he blushed furiously at this – then that Charles had once capsized a punt and half drowned Tilda. I don’t think he likes me volunteering this kind of thing. He always frowns and looks away, whereas Connie leaps on any little titbit and wants more. The difference between men and women? More prejudice. I noticed Toby didn’t seem to know anybody. He didn’t greet anyone we met in the grounds of his college, and he wasn’t greeted by anyone. Maybe he hasn’t made any friends, or maybe they just were not around today. I feel a little anxious about him and must talk to Connie. I thought it permissible to ask if he missed her and was surprised how quickly and strongly he denied it, almost as though I’d insulted him, or had implied he couldn’t stand on his own two feet.

  He’s coming home for two weeks at the end of term and then spending the rest of the vacation in Alaska, on some expedition. I’m glad he won’t be on his own. He used to be every bit as sociable and popular as Connie, but not now, so going with a group is the best thing. What a worry children are, even when grown up, and I am only an aunt. I realise I want Toby to have a girlfriend and be happy and do well and get a good job and marry and settle down, and it is all quite ridiculous when I, of all people, know that life is full of shocks and surprises and it’s no good planning and having cosy fantasies of a perfect future for one’s children. It’s strange the way I worry about Connie far less and yet she’s the girl and life is harder for women. But Connie is full of spirit and can cope with anything, and when I went to visit her was in the thick of everything an
d surrounded by chums. If Toby looks more and more like Charles, Connie looks less and less like Tilda. Twice people thought I was her mother and I must say I could not help being flattered. Connie is the daughter I would like to have had. I said that to her once. But you do have me, she said, seeming quite hurt, I am your daughter, how could you not think so? I was touched, but not fooled. I know the difference. I love Connie dearly, and I am close to her (I think) but Tilda was her mother and in many ways even after all this time she still is. But Toby is the one who might be a different boy if his parents had lived, and if he had had Jack as an influential big brother. I never think of him as the son I almost had. Never. I feel distant from him and it worries me. Have I failed Toby?

  8 July 1957

  DAPHNE HAS SUGGESTED that we go on holiday together, somewhere interesting and sunny as she puts it. My instinctive reaction was to say no, emphatically, but she pre-empted me by telling me not to say no automatically and to think about it. Holidays have always been a problem to me when I have to think of taking them alone. I want to be bold, and go off and do adventurous things but increasingly I have not the nerve. I can’t believe I ever went to Paris on my own all those years ago. It is embarrassing to be alone, one is so conspicuous, and eating especially makes me uncomfortable and self-conscious. One is a target, though of course of a different kind to when one was young. I did it in Paris all those years ago but shrink from doing it now. A companion solves so many problems, though that can be embarrassing too, knowing what people think if they see two women together. Well, let them think, that doesn’t bother me. But would Daphne and I get along? I said that to her. What after all do we have in common? Nothing, except for a history. Precisely, said Daphne, and that is why it would work. We know each other, and all about each other, and there need be no pretence, we are frank and outspoken together. I said to her that I couldn’t imagine that she could not holiday alone, or else in a group, since she is fearless in all situations, unlike me, and a very social animal with hordes of friends. She said she was tired of her friends, male and female, and felt too sad to be alone on holiday, she would be preyed upon. That made me laugh. Daphne, preyed upon indeed, the very idea. So I seem to have agreed, with the proviso that I vet where we will go and that it cannot be anywhere which costs much money. I emphasised that I am poor, and she said, oh stuff. But I am poor. I realised the other day that really I am, except I own a house, which of course in London is something. But the income I have had all these years from Mother’s shares, or rather Harold’s, to pay bills and meet ordinary costs of living, is small. I should never have sold so many of those shares – it was foolish. I can’t bear to see how much they are worth now. But I had no option, I needed so much money last year to re-roof the house and have it rewired, and then the car packed up and even this second-hand Ford cost such a lot. I have looked after the twins these last few years on their money, from their trusts, and now they are at university they need it themselves. I don’t think either of them realise my financial situation and I will certainly not draw attention to it. If I am very, very careful I can still manage. But this holiday Daphne proposes will be an extravagance. If I did not earn a little from my teaching I could not indulge myself.

  15 July

  Daphne has come up with such absurd holiday suggestions. Nepal was one, trekking in the Himalayas. Has she ever been climbing? No. Nor has she ever walked anywhere if she could drive. And as for me, my walking experiences hardly equip me for the Himalayas, though compared to Daphne I would rate as a Sherpa. The next was Australia, the Great Barrier Reef and the interior – ridiculous! The cost alone is prohibitive. Daphne pooh-poohed this, saying she will pay, but I am not having that. Really, I don’t care if the whole idea falls through. I am quite content pottering about in my garden and have no great urge to get away.

  20 July

  I have agreed to go to Greece, on 5 September for three weeks. A much more sensible suggestion and in fact I feel enthusiastic. It will be a good combination of sightseeing and relaxing on beaches. Daphne is in charge of our itinerary, probably a fatal mistake, but I shall inspect it carefully in due course. We are to start off in Athens and then go to several of the islands. Daphne couldn’t possibly stay in one place more than two days and plans what she calls island-hopping. I hope these hops will not be too exhausting. When I told Connie where we were going she approved and said how romantic. Not, I fear, in our case, though of course she’d meant romantic in the broadest sense. It made me remember Robert though, and his ambition to sail among the Greek islands. Two middle-aged ladies – well, I am more than middle-aged – doing it is not quite the same thing. I hope I am fit enough. I think I am, so long as I take care of my back.

  16 August

  Daphne says we must wear shorts and shirts and carry swimming costumes and that is all. She acts as if we are 16. But I have bought two pairs of shorts and hate them both. Shorts are ugly, it seems to me. It is not that I have bad legs – nothing wrong with my legs even at the mighty age of 56 – but that I seem to have put on weight round the hips for the first time in my life, and shorts make me look fat and heavy. Oh, such vanity; but I do mind. I think I will exchange the beastly shorts for light, loose trousers, and ignore what Daphne says. I have bought myself a camera. Dreadful extravagance, but I have always wanted one of these modern Instamatics and I would like to try to take some photographs. I like to think I might have an eye. And I have bought a good pair of sunglasses, since I know the bright sun of Greece will make my eyes water, and a floppy hat. I am being quite childish about this holiday. I am trying to remember when I last did anything as exciting and it is a very long time ago indeed. Connie’s and Toby’s generation are so fortunate. Already the two of them have travelled to so many countries and think nothing of it. Do I envy them? Yes, I envy them.

  *

  The holiday is a success. Millicent’s pleasure is evident in all the diary entries, which detail every aspect of it, from the island scenery to the historic sights in Athens. She thinks she could live on Corfu, the last island they visited, and for a while entertains a fantasy of buying a humble little stone house in Nissaki and supporting herself by teaching English. She feels young again, wears her shorts (she evidently only took one pair back to the shop) and is quite delighted imagining herself as a beatnik. She and Daphne don’t so much get on well as co-exist, leading separate lives but sharing living quarters. Daphne sleeps all morning, totters out to drink and eat at midday, sleeps again in the afternoon then spends long evenings in the taverna keeping what Millicent refers to as ‘highly doubtful company’. She herself, on the other hand, is up at dawn to walk on the beach before she swims most of the morning, with interludes reading in the shade – she has taken Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net with her, Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (which she abandons). She joins Daphne for lunch, has a siesta, then is out taking photographs in the late afternoon. She does go with Daphne to eat at the taverna, but comes back to their rented house early and reads again. At the end of September, as they prepare to go back to London, she has some reflections to make about the whole experience of the Greek islands.

  *

  25 September

  I feel sad to be leaving this island. I think of my London street, the general grey of it, the hard pavements, the traffic, and I think of the rain and cold and the lowering skies so much of the year, and I am appalled. Daphne, oddly enough, is quite happy to return. I thought she was having a wonderful time but maybe not. She says I have led the wrong life and that I should have been born an island urchin whereas she has metropolitan stamped through her like a piece of rock. I have thrived, but she has not. She hasn’t tanned as I have, in fact she looks pale and a little drawn and not as though she has been on holiday in such perfect weather. She says she feels tired. Too much drinking, I think. How she can drink all that retsina and ouzo I cannot imagine. Twice she’s been sick, but this hasn’t stopped her going back for more, and she has an awful cough but w
on’t stop smoking. If I point out that it is the drinking which is making her sick she hurls at me the usual jibe, that I am prim and school-marmish and asks me to stop being judgemental. So I do, I have. It doesn’t hurt me any more when she says such things. Here I don’t feel in the least prim or school-marmish, and I know I don’t look it.

  1 October

  An awful dreariness hangs over everything. Bad luck to come back from such a wonderful holiday to cold, wet weather and so many small things which have gone wrong. Some guttering has fallen off the new roof in a storm and a cat has got into my garden and wrecked what remained of my plants. I seem to take delight in nothing. Is this the beginning of old age? Yet I didn’t feel it in Greece. Go back there, then, my irritable self snaps, but that isn’t the answer. The truth is, and it must be faced, I am bored. My life seems to lack both point and pleasure. Pleasure – is life about the pursuit of pleasure? Once I thought it was meant to be about more than that. What all this introspection amounts to is a restlessness, a refusal to be satisfied with ordinariness. Endless expectations which aren’t realised. Oh, I annoy myself. If this is going to be the aftermath of every holiday, I had better not take any more.

  5 October

  Toby has been here briefly, a pause before going back to Cambridge. He is a strange young man. All he wanted to talk about was some rumour that the Russians are about to put a dog into orbit. I wish Connie had been here at the same time so that we could have discussed him. He has grown a beard which because it has come out red makes him look very fierce. I do wish he would shave it off, but he says he doesn’t intend to unless it turns out there is some college rule forcing him to. He seems to have grown even taller, but maybe he simply looks taller because he is thinner. Not much emerged about his Alaska trip. Not much emerged about anything. He has become singularly uncommunicative. He showed no interest in my Greek holiday. The truth is, he has become a morose boy and I don’t know what is the matter with him. I tried to talk to him about his future, but he seemed to think this was some kind of impertinence. He shrugged and said repeatedly that he doesn’t know what he wants to do, but he is glad he gave up medicine. He can’t see the point of being a doctor: doctors know so little and their work is miserable stuff, he says. But on the contrary, I said, their work is worthwhile and full of purpose. Making sick people better, what could be more satisfying? Toby said doctors make more people ill than well, which exasperated me. It occurred to me more than once during these interchanges that Toby doesn’t like me. That is what seems to come off him, dislike. I intend to bear this with dignity.