Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  Thursday 23 May I bore my Mother away to the West End to see Gone With the Wind, which, darling, is unendurably long (3h 58m). The acting is good (but no better than that). Some of the photography is lovely – and you know what I think of the plot – and all its shoddy melodrama stands out far more glaringly on the screen than in the pages of the book. No, my comfort, it is not worth all the publicity which has been lavished on it – it is not worth getting pins and needles in the rear elevation for, either – and, above all, it is not worth Titanic feats of Endurance in connection with Duncan.

  Horace is so bracing. He came to see me yesterday evening & solemnly urged my mother and myself to evacuate ourselves to my farm in Wales, so that when the Nazis smash us, we can make a ‘quick getaway’ via some northerly port. Dear Horace.

  Oh! darling. I haven’t seen you since Newton started Taking an Interest in Apples – and that was hundreds of years ago.

  Monday 10 June Aubrey came into the drawing room, stiff and correct and every-inch-an-officer – and the bridge-players (including my mother & father, darling – what a Sorrow) just looked at him with a glazed eye &, as he said afterwards, made him feel like the Shrinking Man in every Bateman cartoon. My father then bore Aubrey & me off to the Front Parlour & told us All, with vague & gloomy expansiveness. All he said could be condensed into one poignant & succinct phrase. ‘What a sorrow.’ Aubrey called him Sir, and put his case – in the Pauses for Breath – and my father said he’d do what he could for him with Colonel Kisch & Lord Lloyd. He then said A Few Words on the subject of Glorious Evacuations & went back to his bridge. Aubrey seemed to think he might be helpful – but he (Aubrey) was tired & nervy & stilted – and when I told him about the Importance of Shoes in marking the distinction between Forwardness and Wantonness, he was only able to manage a wan smile – and it was obvious that his Mind was elsewhere.

  I felt suddenly & frighteningly out of touch with Aubrey tonight. Perhaps because I’d hung on to the thought of his coming as a kind of indirect link with you – and he was completely detached from us and our idiom and our Solaces & Sorrows.

  Of course, it’s not surprising. It looks as though MI2 is off – but he hopes with the help of Dr Weizmann, Major Cazalet & perhaps Pa, to get to Egypt & Palestine, and do the kind of work that interests him – once he gets there. Everyone in Whitehall disclaimed all knowledge or responsibility in the matter or expressed Great Sorrow – Oh! I hope All will be Well with him.

  Tuesday 11 June When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions, darling – as I may have said before.

  This morning Lord Inverforth3 telephoned & my mother picked up the receiver. He asked if he could speak to Dad and then urged him to go into another room – alone. Something in his voice must have frightened my mother because she turned dreadfully pale – and I, rather foolishly, advised her to pick up the receiver & listen in. She did – and oh! darling, she just lay back in bed gasping & choking with dry, coughing sobs. Lord I had had a wire from her sisters asking him to tell her that Uncle Elie had died suddenly (acute appendicitis with complications). She has this rather frightening & very Jewish bond with all her relations – & in this case there was no warning or preparation of any kind. Dad came into the room & sat down – his face was quite grey & blank & he kept muttering ‘She doesn’t deserve it’ over & over again – & nurse danced around squeaking with maddening ineffectualness. Mon dieu, quel cauchemare! (I can’t spell, darling, even in an emergency. I don’t know whether there’s an ‘e’ in cauchemare or nor.) Now, there’ll be another year of black and apathy & withdrawal for my mother.

  Yesterday she was worried because all her money is in her brothers’ bank & may be confiscated by the Egyptian Government – and that would mean that our only steady income would be cut off completely – & now there’s this. I’m glad I’m here today, my dear love – not but what I’m completely useless & ineffectual – but she seems to be pleased that I’m back in London.

  This isn’t a letter – just thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.4 (Eliot is a great poet, dear.) Oh! I am out of suits with fortune!

  Referring to you at lunch today, darling, my father said in mock-bewilderment that he couldn’t understand ‘this business’ at all – but no doubt it had some profound Medieval Significance – to which I replied that you were a verray parfit gentil knight5 – and, in addition, a Great Solace to me. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘Solace? Solace?’ and then, dear, the Beauty of the word dawned upon him, in all its glory. ‘Solace’, he murmured into his Camembert. ‘Solace!’ he added later between noisy sips of coffee. ‘Solace’, he said, puffing the word out with his cigarette-smoke. This is the first glimpse of my idiom he’s had as yet. Perhaps I was wrong in keeping it from him for so long.

  It’s been a wearing day – my father has suggested that a Good Way to end Italian intervention would be to dress the Pope up in Full Regalia & send him between the French & Italian armies saying ‘Shoot if you dare!’ (A Beautiful Thought in its way.)

  Wednesday 12 June Yesterday evening my father & I walked to Primrose Hill for air. He was peering over fences at potato-patches in an ecstasy of dig-for-victory enthusiasm – but I was looking wistfully at the mollockers in the long grass & thinking that the nobleness of life would be to do thus if you & I could do it. Oh! my God, the Dragon School has just notified us of a violent epidemic of measles & Dicky is coming home on Saturday for a fortnight! where’s that kindly & protective providence you told me about?

  Friday 14 June I’ve just fled upstairs to escape the 1 o’clock news. Cowardly, dear? – but the tension here is growing & growing, & I’m so terrified of my father’s deciding suddenly that we are to go away – to Canada or God knows where. If that happened, then that dream I’m always having about not being able to get to you would be real, darling. Oh! God. I’m bereft of all words at that thought.

  My mother is eating off a low stool with a slit in her petticoat – a gloomy business – & my father sits & speculates upon our chances of survival when the Germans occupy London. Tomorrow Dicky will be here to give us a taste of Nazism in the Home. Tired of all these, for restful death I cry … as I said in one of my best sonnets – adding hastily however – save that to die I leave my love alone.6

  Saturday 15 June I’ve been keeping out of my father’s way – & last night he commented on it – acidly – & then took on a martyred air, & today he keeps coming into my room & asking me to go downstairs & talk to him. It’s exactly as I told you, darling. I can’t escape – and every time I’m with him, I simply quiver with fury – because he took me away from Cambridge, darling – and I can’t bear it. Dicky has come home today, doubtless to spread measles & havoc. There is no light … no light.

  I had a letter from Aubrey this morning. There’s no question of MI. Dr Weizmann’s son is in exactly the same position, it seems – and Dr W has had a Cackle of Cabinet Ministers pulling wires All in Vain. However, he hopes to get to the Near East & establish himself as an Asset when he gets there. His training ends on Friday & then he gets a fortnight’s leave.

  We had a diversion yesterday in the shape of a fat little refugee rabbi who came to instruct my mother in the Art of Mourning. (She ought to Know All by now – she’s had enough practice, poor woman, but she’s so frightened of Leaving Anything Out, that she always likes to have a Spiritual Guide to Hold her Hand.) He was small & round and his features were richly curved – & he thought up a perfectly incredible number of things which my mother ought to be doing – & then when he got home he remembered yet Another – & he telephoned to tell my mother that she must on no account wear leather on her feet (Give me a shoe that is not leather soled! – or a bedroom slipper, for that matter) lest we should all Perish or be Cast into Hell. It was obviously a matter about which he felt strongly.

  I’ve done nothing since I left Cambridge but let my melancholy sit on brood – and read crime-stories – the bloodier the better. I’m suffering
from an infinite prolongation of the feeling I have in Cambridge when you’re an hour or two late. I haven’t smiled since I left you standing on the station in your white shirt & blue jacket which I could see for such a long time after the train had started moving.

  Darling, Colonel Nathan’s peerage makes me feel awkward & embarrassed with Joyce. You see, I think it’s ludicrous – & she thinks it’s Just & Proper. (Of course I didn’t tell her I thought it was Ludicrous – you have learnt by now that I don’t invariably Tell All, haven’t you?) So there’s an Enormous Gap between her Idiom & Mine on the subject – even in jest.

  Sunday 16 June Col. Nathan a peer, darling! However the Hon. Joyce will carry her courtesy title with an air – & doubtless (I mean Mrs N (as was) of course) Her Ladyship’s F. H.7 will become more formidable by several inches.

  I had tea with Joyce and her mother today. I peered wistfully at the exquisite square inch of tea-butter and, like Marie Antoinette, decided that the common people had better eat cake. I saw the report in the evening paper when I got home. I rang Joyce up to rebuke her for failing to Tell Me All. She said there wasn’t a word of Truth in it – and half-an-hour later rang me up to say that it was now official. Can’t you imagine the Colonel coming home & coyly unburdening himself like a bride announcing that an Heir has been arranged for? How Fantastic!

  Friday 21 June Oh! darling, it was fantastically selfish of me to suggest that you should come to London on Saturday – but when it’s a matter of keeping you with me or having you back again soon, I have no morals – I’ve always felt in complete affinity with Cleopatra when she turned her ship round – knowing Antony would follow her – although it meant shame – shame – ever for ever – and she knew it.

  Monday 24 June I went to Kilburn with my mother this morning to buy vegetables (vegetables are cheaper in Kilburn, darling!) & now I Know All. You burst open pea-pods & taste the peas & unless they’re a Solace in the Raw, you Reject them – you squeeze cabbages & unless they squeak, you say in a voice of withering scorn, that they Have no Heart – and cast them from you – a lettuce that you can’t stub your finger on is No Good – & when strawberries are two shillings a pound, you lose Heart & decide that you might as well have done your shopping at Swiss Cottage & saved a 2d bus fare.

  Tuesday 25 June Oh! darling, things that love night love not such things as these. The sirens started screaming at 1.15. (Sirens are louder here than at Girton Corner.) I got up to see what my parents were doing – and Pa took such exception to my suggestion that we should all stay in bed, that I put on my new dressing-gown, wrapped my eiderdown round me & followed him to our outside shelter. It was a clear, still night and the stars couldn’t have been more sharply focussed if there had been a frost – half a moon & little greyish clouds. We packed into the shelter like chocolate stick-biscuits in a round tin. We sat in deck-chairs – large deck-chairs – & my feet didn’t reach the ground – but Stanley chivalrously stretched out his legs & let me rest my feet on his slippers. We sat quite silently for the most part – the only sound was the rumbling of poor old Wright’s recalcitrant digestion – & occasional bursts of impromptu & heavy jests from Pa. At about 2.30 (the shelter is distempered concrete & as bare as a picked bone, and I was getting colder & colder), I was suddenly doubled up with cramp – (Nurse said nastily that it was due to my being out in the rain on Sunday. I pointed out tartly that there hadn’t been a drop of rain anywhere except on the pavement by the time we got out of the house!). Anyway, I quaffed a sherry glass full of brandy & warm water in one nose-wrinkling gulp & went to bed. The All-Clear sounded at four – but I never heard it – the brandy having done its work – but that was only the beginning of things for my parents & Stanley – because poor old Wright had a heart-attack & they had to summon a doctor & send him off in Mrs Wright’s care, to hospital. So this morning everyone here is a little blear-eyed & vague.

  Wednesday 26 June Darling, I’m almost angry with you. Here are the papers all buzzing with vague & terrifying reports of continuous raids on the SW – and no letter of reassurance from you this morning.

  I spent a fantastic afternoon with Joan at her crazy school yesterday. The children wear purple shorts and white shirts – the garden is a carefully cultivated wilderness – the school-building, rambling, beautifully furnished, with a touch of arty-craftiness here & there. The staff sits about on tree-stumps Musing upon Life in rather uninhibited clothes. (Joan tells me that the Headmistress, who is nearly 83, and of titanic dimensions, appeared in the air-raid shelter on Monday night in a pair of trousers all tied together with safety-pins – declaring that her zip fasteners had been sabotaged either by one of the children or the staff – and after seeing the school, I can well believe it.)

  Joan told me, more in sorrow than in anger, that she had met Joy Blackaby at her interview with the Cambridge County School, & the first thing Joy had said to her was that she’d seen me one day mollocking abandonedly in KP!8 Joan said that in Cambridge of all places there was no excuse for Public Mollocking, because the facilities for kissing & clipping at home were unlimited. I agreed in principle – but I pointed out that in my case, there was a factor which had never entered into her relationship with Ian – Time fear. I said that taking a short-view, she too had often heard time’s winged chariot hurrying near – but that against this – she had a confident feeling of permanence which made it unnecessary for her to hang on to the reassurance of physical contact. Because she has a sense of having all life before her, darling, she never has that terrifying ‘Is he really here?’ doubt – nor the crushing fear that every moment of Solace may be the last. She couldn’t see why I should assume that you’d stop wanting me as a Solace one day. She said that, from what she had seen of us together, our regard for one another was unhurried & restful & built on more permanent foundations than most people’s. I said that mine was – but that you had warned me from the very beginning that yours might not be – but I hoped to God she was right – whereupon she withdrew her censure of my public behaviour, & added that she was sure that, ultimately, All Would be Well.

  I got a letter and a Character from Miss Bradbrook this morning. She is serving her country by pounding mangle-wurzels and working for the Hush-hush from nine-till-five every day. Only Miss Bradbrook could have thought of such a Beautiful juxtaposition of labours – turning mangle-wurzels into cattle-fodder – and hearing All – at one fell swoop. She’s a wonderful woman. My Character is on a very high Plane, darling. I’m looking forward to showing it to you. She advises me to get into the Civil Service if I can, because I’ll only be allowed to take up my research where I left off if I’ve been doing war-work in the interval.

  Thursday 27 June I have been to Kilburn again for vegetables. Cauliflowers have risen in price, whereas beans have Gone Down. The situation on the Asparagus Market remains unchanged.

  I’m seeing the Secretary of the Appointments Board tomorrow to Tell her All. I liked the sound of her voice over the telephone – which is encouraging – voices make a lot of difference. Did you hear the Princess Royal asking us to join the ATS on the Wireless? ‘Over your dead body!’ I replied sullenly. ‘If it’s the last thing I do.’ (Aren’t everybody’s idioms but ours silly, dear?)

  Then Aubrey rang up to ask if we could meet for tea instead of lunch, as his cousin Charles had decided to get married. I said oh! wasn’t that rather surprising? – to which he replied Yes and No. Charles, it seems has been Walking Out for eighteen years – but, Aubrey says, after you have been Walking Out for eighteen years, people just assume that you have Got into a Rut, and stop wondering about Intentions – (what a Solace, darling, we’ve only got seventeen years to go!) & when you have an over-night whirlwind courtship with your wench of eighteen years standing, and get married the next day – it is, on one plane, surprising, although, on another, you’ve really been expecting it all along. This is the gist of what Aubrey said, though perhaps he didn’t say it quite in those words.

  La
ter: Aubrey arrived at the Cumberland rather late. He was delayed by the wedding. It’s a Beautiful story, darling. It seems that Charles and his lady would have gone on Walking Out quite happily for another eighteen years, had it not been for his parents & the lady’s. She is a Palestinian &, as such, subject to the Alien curfew. ‘Poor Shulamite,’ said her parents, in sorrow (Shulamite, believe it or not, is her name.) ‘How inconvenient’ – and they called on Charles’ parents, who forthwith sent a wire to Charles saying, ‘Be a man Charles – marry her – or she’ll have to go to bed every night at 10.15.’ So Charles called on her & said ‘What are you doing on Thursday, sweet chuck?’ & she said she had a short-hand exam in the morning but that she was free in the afternoon. ‘All Right,’ said Charles, ‘we’ll get married in the afternoon.’ And they did – in the presence of Aubrey & his mother. The ceremony lasted 15 minutes & then Charles went over to the cash desk & handed over £2. 4. 6½d (Aubrey says you can do it for 7/6d if you really try – but Charles decided to do the Big Thing for once in his life. Aubrey says he is disgustingly rich – and incredibly parsimonious in the normal way). Aubrey arrived for tea looking harassed & a little disillusioned. He says he now knows why so many people prefer to Live in Sin. Registry Office Marriages – culminating in a sordid little transaction at the cash desk are, he assures me, no solace at all. What an anti-climax, dear, after Walking Out on a Higher Plane for 18 years!