Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  Perhaps there’s something in what Joan says, darling.

  Sunday 13 April [her birthday] I have nor youth nor age, darling, having had too much lunch and not caring whether it is I who have been Arrested in Adolescence or the rest of the world, which is Precocious.

  Joan is writing letters too – Occasionally her mouth widens into a happy smile – that is when she has been able to capture an impression and bring it to life on paper – I wonder if I smile like that, darling, when I write letters?

  Joan and I are full of resolves, darling. We are going (we say) to write at length to all our friends – we are going to share out our All – we are going to Get in Touch – and Keep in Touch – We are resolved. She’s in a queer state, darling. She has an intuition that Ian has been hurt – and she talks wildly and brilliantly & frightenedly of everything but that. Oh! darling, what the Hell sort of use is anyone to a friend? One person can do nothing to help another. I never realized it so bitterly and sharply as that day in Queen’s Hall – when I so wanted to be a comfort to you – and I could only be hand-wringingly and inarticulately useless. With Joan, I just go All Hearty and Impersonal and Aggressively larger than Life-Size. My mother said to me this morning that fundamentally I was generous minded and loveable – but superficially I was hardly nice at all – Is this true, darling? (Not a rhetorical question.)

  Monday 14 April Nurse’s husband came from Liverpool for the weekend, darling – He’s waiting to be shipped abroad – and he’d heard that if your wife is Certified in Danger of Her Life, (she’s going to have a baby), you didn’t have to go – He came to Look for a Doctor to Certify Nurse – However, he couldn’t find one – The one he saw said she was Bursting With Health – which, I suppose, was Discouraging in its way.

  Thursday 17 April Darling, what I don’t know about Hell this morning could be written on the thin end of a wedge. The sirens went at about 9 and after that, until five in the morning, the planes were whining overhead so that I thought I could feel them grazing my scalp, darling, and the sound they made gave me the impression that they were blackening the sky like locusts – wing-tip to wing-tip. There wasn’t a moment of silence all night – ‘Look how the floor of heaven is deep inlaid with patens of bloody Huns’ I kept saying querulously to myself, and I couldn’t sleep. Then, darling, above the noise of planes there was another noise, suddenly. It was far more terrifying – It sounded as an oncoming train must sound to a suicide on a railway-line – it was like the whistle of a bomb and yet unlike it – it was like the hissing of a monstrous boiler – and yet it wasn’t. My mother said it was a land-mine so we all got up and stood under the stairs in the hall. The air is cut away before and closes from behind, I murmured to myself. I always get quotation fever when I’m frightened, darling. It took 25 minutes to come down, darling, and then it crashed and splintered and we all went back to bed. (We discovered this morning that it had landed in West End Lane.)

  The West End is a shambles of splintered glass this morning – Oxford Street, from Selfridges to Debenhams is roped off – and the Strand is still ablaze. Ariel House seems to have been missed, as the result of an Oversight. There doesn’t seem any other possible explanation. Trafalgar Square was solid with Traffic – and a man was announcing irritably, in a voice fraught with pained refinement, that all Traffic to the City must turn back. It was uncanny – as though Nelson with his Celebrated Public-Spiritedness had decided to play his part in ARP and had had loudspeakers installed for that purpose.

  I’m so tired, darling, that I can hardly see the page. I’ve been nervous in Air-Raids before, but last night I was Terrified.

  I worked scrappily and desultorily, today – and then I couldn’t get a ’bus or a taxi to come home in and I walked & walked and walked. I found a taxi in the end – but there was a lot of Talk and Acrimony and threats from Beefy Men to report the Driver to the Police (because he said he didn’t want to drive me – he wanted to go home to his supper – I don’t blame the poor devil).

  Pa is getting all Shelter-conscious again, darling, and he’s as Broody as an Expectant Hen – over the news – and Life – and Death – and talking of Death, I saw a dead man being brought out of a house on a stretcher on my way home. I’ve never seen anyone dead before. He just looked as though he were asleep – but I was terribly frightened, darling – I’m frightened now. I wonder if we’ll ever grow to forget the things we’ve seen and heard in this war, darling? Oh! thank God for you. The only thing that has made these last months possible is your love. When I’m with you, I don’t believe in anything else – but when I’m away, my dear love, the clouds do hang on me – That’s why it’s of such paramount importance that I should be with you when I can. (Hold on to Sunday.) That’s why I’m so ruthlessly selfish with my parents.

  Monday 21 April Darling, what made you suddenly ask me yesterday if I was sorry you ever kissed me? Of course I’m not, my dear love – Being close to you is the greatest happiness I have – and I like to be close to you physically as well as emotionally and intellectually – That’s why, darling, I know (not by the light of nature but by the light of deductive reasoning) that I should be happy to be Wanton with you (but only if I were your wife, darling, otherwise the Social and Family and Emotional implications would set me a-cluck up to death!) because then I’d be closest of all to you.

  Oh! darling, the birds’ songs are filling the sky. It’s damnable that their sweet jargoning should be battered out of existence by the guns in the night. You know I’m right in saying that there’s no joy in modern poetry (except in Yeats). I don’t think Eliot ever mentions birds – but Chaucer is full of fowles and briddes – and Shakespeare embodies all the desolation of winter in ‘bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’6 – and all the joy of summer in ‘hark, hark the lark at Heaven’s gate sings’.7 Yeats believes that the sadness of old age lies in its turning away from birds in the trees to monuments of imaginary intellect – Bird-songs are youth and joy and love, darling. Hold on to bird-songs. (Damn! Pa has come in to talk about Him & Leslie – it looks like an all-evening session.)

  Darling, it came over me in a Wave today, that I’m not really Efficient. Mr Crotch gave me something to do which was really childishly simple – To draft and address a letter to our education authority. The draft was alright, but I addressed it to the man who wrote the letter, and the man quite plainly and in words of one syllable asked us to write to someone else (He gave the proper address in Large Black Type). Mr Crotch was just amused – (He thinks it’s a Huge Joke, darling, that they pay me a colossal salary for doing things wrong) but I was distressed. Oh! God, I wish I weren’t so stupid. It’s because I’m so silly in a vague way, and so plain and so useless, darling, that I feel it’s so monstrous that I should have any pretensions to being your Solace – but oh! my dear love, thank you for loving me.

  Apart from this nothing happened today. I went to the dentist after work and he hurt me a little – but not much.

  Monday 28 April On Thursday, darling, I asked you if you’d ever heard of Rosemary Allott – and, of course, you said you never had? The whole point about Rosemary Allott, darling, is that no-one has ever heard of her – and nobody ever will. Well, I met her today in Charing Cross. She has a Gauntness about her that she hadn’t got at Cambridge and her face is covered with yellowish down, like a new-born chicken (only it suits a new-born chicken) and instead of being burly and bumptious she’s wiry and bumptious. She’s working for the BBC in Bush House, a score of paces from our door. Oh! dear. She almost Folded Me in Her Arms – but not quite – and she said we Must Meet. I wilted and said, ‘Yes, indeed’ or words to that effect – and after she had Wrung my Telephone number from me, we parted.

  Tuesday 29 April Rosemary’s visit wasn’t altogether appalling, dear. She had a wonderful tale to tell about Edna Browne. (Edna was very tall and fair, darling, and very Upright – as though she had a rod down the middle of her back instead of a spine – I think you
met her once or twice. The night Porter at Girton always called her Miss Browne Withance.) Someone told Joan that Edna was friendly with a BBC Official in Bristol – which I naturally took to mean that she was Walking Out with Bruce Belfrage8 – but apparently he is not Bruce Belfrage – his name is Horace – and All is Over, because to use Rosemary’s Striking Phrase, he made Improper Proposals. He had a wife, darling, (his second) who, when she was at school was concerned about the Flatness of her Bosom – and a kindly schoolmate told her that she’d heard that if you Bound a Brace of Cabbage Leaves round the place where your Bosom should have been – you would, in the Fullness of Time, develop Comely Curves. I asked interestedly whether this ingenious cure had had the desired effect – but Rosemary didn’t know and didn’t care – She was more concerned with another aspect of the story. ‘He told this to Edna the second time he met her – so you can just imagine the kind of man he was,’ she said in a Pleasurably Scandalized voice.

  She wanted to Know All – relating to Joan and me. When I said I hoped to go back to Cambridge after the war and finish my Thesis – she said, Coming Over All Girlish: ‘Oh! but aren’t you thinking of getting married?’ I said something evasive about Having Forgotten How to Think – so she tried a New Tack – she wanted to know how you were – and where you were – and what you were doing. I told her – distantly – and then when Joan said absent-mindedly that it was no wonder I was suffering after a day in a roaring gale with you and your cold – she murmured something coy about ‘My true love hath my cold and I have his’9 – at which Joan & I withered her with a Collective & Piercing Glance – and she went home – abashed – I hope. Furthermore, she was Astonished at Joan’s and my Firsts and said so – without Inhibition. This did not please us – and we explained that, though others might have been surprised – we had known what to Expect all along. At this, she was more astonished than ever, and said that she’d always understood that Firsts were rare in English. We pointed out that they were rare, and that it was simply that she was Overwhelmed at seeing two of us at once – we didn’t blame her – on the Contrary – we Understood – but she mustn’t lose her sense of proportion all the same. We pointed out, too, that we were two-thirds of the Women Firsts in our year – and that this was her Great Moment. My father was rocking with mirth at our Impertinence – but I don’t think Rosemary was amused.

  Monday 19 May Darling, I’m coming to Cambridge on Saturday afternoon. I spoke to my mother about it while we were clearing the table after dinner last night, and she said she’d no objection if Pa agreed. Of course, Pa did not agree. He said he’d made no comment on the manner in which I was ‘making myself cheap’ by running after you on Sundays – and that he supposed I’d got enough sense and was old enough to look after myself – but since I’d asked for his opinion, he was glad of the opportunity of Voicing his Displeasure – And then he reiterated (in a very watered-down and expurgated form, because Joan was there, Thank God) all the things he’s said so often before. He said that I was not behaving in a way calculated to win your lasting affection and respect and that one day I’d be Sorry for It and would Remember his Words. It was all very Gentlemanly, darling, and I said that if Mr Turner would have me, I was going all the same, and he said very well, and the discussion was closed.

  But I’m in a Damn Everything mood and furiously angry to boot – I am not going to Have a Scene – I’m tired of Scenes, darling – and if I’ve got to live with my father – my best course is to ignore his attitude as long as he doesn’t refer to it – but oh! my dear love, I do think it’s hard – and so does Joan. She says she wouldn’t have believed that my father could be so unreasonable unless she’d heard it with her own ears – (and even so, darling, she only heard a very mild version of the Usual Spate of Rhetorical Tags).

  Monday 26 May Jean has just come in, in a state of Morbid Preoccupation. She says she’s been Wallowing in Confidential Reports about the Shipping situation. She says her only Consolation is that the man who wrote them is called Dismal Jimmie for short – and that, therefore, All is Not Lost – which, she feels, is Something – but not Much.

  Monday 2 June I had a dreadful time with Joan last night – all because of the Neutral tone of Ian’s letters – She said she was Going Mad – that Ian had written to her for the past eleven months just as though she were his Maiden Aunt. (Oh! my darling, if you’re sent abroad (Heaven Forfend) please don’t write to me as though I were your maiden aunt) and she cried most painfully. In the meantime Pa has a theory that she’s ‘losing her head’ over the Canadians – and, as usual, he’s thinking the right thing for the wrong reason. She is losing her balance over Mr Sims – (She says herself that if he weren’t married she’d probably marry him in sheer desperation and gratitude for his affection) but there’s far more Complexity in the whole business than meets the eye.

  Joan met Susan Symonds (she’s married now – but I forget her name) today – Ram-rod spine, CUSC10 Classics and Economics. When she went down she worked behind a counter at Marks & Spencers to See How the Sweated Worker Lived. Having Found Out, she went into the Ministry of Shipping as a TAA. She says Aviva Simon is there too. I thought you might be interested to hear of Aviva, darling. She was a very nice girl, I always thought, didn’t you?

  Wednesday 4 June Darling, the fact that when I try and help you off with your coat, it takes longer for you to shake yourself out of it, and the fact that I clear my throat nervously in concerts, and my hundred thousand other Ineptitudes may make you smile but they make me cry – and I think, with crushing fear, that when they cease to make you smile, they’ll bore you and irritate you beyond endurance. Oh! God – so darling, I’m leaden-stomached and infinitely tired – I feel like a Temporary Clerk, Grade III, who has been cast for the role of Cleopatra by a fantastic producer and who can’t manage it because she hasn’t the intellectual breadth or emotional stature to play the Queen whom age could not wither and whose infinite variety custom could not stale.

  I had a card from Sheila last night – packed with Matter for a going to be WAAF. Hamish & Charlotte were married in St Giles Cathedral – How Fantastic – but how typical of Hamish, darling – typical by its very incongruity. Why haven’t I answered her letter, she asks Petulantly, she points out that it was a Beautiful letter, which undoubtedly it was. The Ministry of Shipping is seething with Girtonians. In addition to Joan & Susan and Aviva, there’s Aileen Little, a pink-and-white creature with a Vacuous Eye and a First in Modern Languages. Joan is delighted.

  Oh! darling, please write to me – and forgive me for being Possessive and querulous and intransigent. I love you, and it so often seems to me that you’d be better and freer and happier without me – and it screws my heart-strings to snapping point. Of course, a clever woman would either take what she could get and make no additional, unreasonable demands – or she’d say well, Hell! And let you go Graciously, while it was still possible – or she’d shift her love onto a lighter and more casual plane – but I can’t do any of those things, my dear love – I can only go round and round at the centre of a smallish whirlpool.

  Darling, am I mad – or only overwhelmed by a love which is so much greater than I am? I don’t know.

  Sunday 15 June We had rather a prim day in the sunshine with the Levys. I knitted ferociously at your sock and thought how much happier I’d be in your arms by the cool river at West Drayton. Dapper little Charles who had 48 hours leave, was twittering about, being All Helpful – and being Quashed rudely by all the Levy’s for his pains. Ismay regards him as a useful but rather inept household good and/or chattel – but I don’t think she loves him much, though she holds his hand with polite connubiality when he feels so inclined, which is less often than yester-year. He’s been made Messing Officer of his unit and he adores it. He has a wonderful time making Hot Chocolate Sauce out of Nothing for his Men – and spends most of his day In Camera with a sheaf of recipes. If you’d been there to smile with me, darling, I’d have had a happy day. />
  Monday 16 June Darling, I had lunch with Aubrey. He’d been at the War Office Conference about Obstructing Landing Grounds – and he’d just Put Across a Scheme for Hacking up several Million Acres. He was Elated. You should have heard him on Charles Emmanuel in the role of Messing Officer: ‘We are all misfits in this war,’ he said wistfully, ‘except Charles Emmanuel – He has found his Niche.’ I said something about Ismay being a Static Personality – He said, more in Sorrow than in Anger, not Static – Stagnant.

  Monday 30 June Darling, gas-mask practice is at 10 and I’ve left my mask at home again. I daren’t Face the wardens so in five minutes I’m going to have an Urgent Call from Duncan – and I shall go into Secret Session with him until the All Clear Bell rings! What else can I do? The Penalties for forgetting your gas-mask twice in succession are so Sinister that no-one knows what they are – but, as the Mikado says, the Punishment is something terribly amusing with Boiling Oil in it – yes, I’m sure there’s Boiling Oil in it.

  Tuesday 1 July Darling, Donne’s greatness is illimitable. I’m sure he’s the greatest writer of all time – except Shakespeare. I’ve been reading his sermons – God, what it must have been to have heard him preach. He tears his text to pieces with the level-headed thoroughness of a Hebrew commentator – and yet all the time there’s a pressing undercurrent of exulting sensual excitement – and it swells to a torrent as he gets to his peroration – I wanted to get up and shout with delight in the ’bus – but perhaps on the whole, darling, it’s just as well that I Restrained myself.